Mercy
by The-Lady-Isis
Summary: Clark was under for hours, Bruce for less than five minutes. Both would have fallen to the insidiousness of the Black Mercy without Wonder Woman. So what will happen to Diana...when she is taken for over a month? Can she surrender paradise? Will she?
1. Switch

**Disclaimer for the whole fic: I own NOTHING. I'm just playing with him (ahem) THEM and then I'll put them back once I'm done I promise. **

**A/N: Not so dark, but will be angsty, obv lol. Enjoy!**

**Chapter One - Switch**

Diana was having a day off, and enjoying it more than she thought she would. She'd teleported down to Metropolis, had lunch with Lois and listened to the latest 'Clark-still-hasn't-told-me-he's-Superman' gossip (honestly, she didn't know how Lois hadn't just snapped and told him she knew), and was now shopping, debating whether Bloomingdale's or Macy's deserved her custom more.

Suddenly, there was the unmistakable sound of an alarm bell ringing from the jewellery store across the street from Diana, and she dropped her bags and flew over there, landing amongst the broken glass of the smashed display cases.

"Wonder Woman!" the proprietor gasped. "Oh thank God."

"Where are the thieves?" Diana asked.

He pointed. "She ran out the back. But-"

Diana didn't stick around for the 'but', and left the shop in the same manner she'd entered it, following the faint sound of heels from just around the corner. As she turned into the alley, a door at the far end closed with a snick. She flew to it, and went inside the apparently empty warehouse.

It took a moment for her eyes to become adjusted to the sudden lack of light before she began moving again, levitating a few inches off the ground so as not to cause any noise. She was about thirty feet in before she heard anything.

"Ooooooh bad idea to come here alone, little Princess."

At the voice, Diana repressed the urge to groan. Not again. "Circe. What do you want, witch?"

"Just to have a little fun." There was a shimmer in the air, and the sorceress appeared, smirking widely. Diana wasn't concerned about her so much as she was the three snarling tigers that had appeared along with her. She dropped into a defensive stance automatically.

"Here to turn me into a pig again?"

"Oh no, I know when to abandon a strategy. Attack," she added casually to the big cats.

The reaction was instant; all three of them pounced on Diana, claws and teeth out, ready to sink into any flesh they could get out. The only positive thing was that since they'd all leapt at once, two of them hit each other, leaving only one to get to her. She raised her bracers, and most of the tiger's teeth hit the metal – then broke. It whimpered and let go of her, but slashed upward with its paw, and Diana felt four deep scratches open on her side. She used the pain to fuel her aggression and punched the tiger in the head, then threw it through a wall. Dimly, she realised Circe was still talking.

"No, I've been regrouping," she said, as if catching up with an old friend. "I decided that research was the key with you."

The other two tigers pounced on her together; one on her torso while the other one went for her legs. After receiving a bite on her thigh, she grabbed and squeezed its huge chest between her legs. She heard ribs break, and then kicked the tiger upward, aiming for Circe. The witch only floated a few feet to the left.

"The past is easy to look at magically, you know. And I've been studying you." Her smile widened. "I have to confess, I'm disappointed by you, Diana. Still not managed to seduce the Batman yet? And you dare to call yourself an Amazon."

Diana was only half-listening, since this tiger was proving cleverer than the other two, and had backed off. The two were circling each other – both hunters in their own way. Finally, it leapt at her again, and got lucky. Its full weight smashed into her shoulder, which on a normal person would have broken it, but with Diana only dislocated the joint. Partly out of pain and partly reflex, Diana drove her other fist into the big cat's skull, cracking it.

"And not just you, either. And you know what struck me? The thing that almost brought down you, and Batman, and Superman?"

Diana's mind quickly ran through the list of missions the three of them had been on, that had almost resulted in them being killed or totally incapacitated. Only one came to mind quickly, and moving as fast as she could through the pain, Diana threw the tiger off her, and spun back to Circe. She was half a second too late, and registered a lashing pink tongue flying toward her. She had just enough time to feel a frisson of fear before everything went black.

---

"Diana?"

I blinked, refocusing on the man in the kitchen. "Hmmm?"

He raised an eyebrow. "You're not listening, are you?"

"Of course I am! You just asked me if I'd like red or white."

"Actually I asked you if you'd like white or rosé," he said. "Red with fish?"

I looked down at my plate. "Oh, I thought we were having lamb tonight."

He came out of the kitchen and lifted my chin. "What's wrong? You've been distracted all evening."

I smiled. "Sorry, Bruce. Just…brooding, I guess."

"Over what?"

"Mary Jackson."

"Oh." He took my hands now. "It's not your fault, Diana. You caught that psychopath. You stopped him killing again."

"Yes, but it was Gotham's brilliant DA that put him away," I grinned, standing up and wrapping my arms around his hips.

"I try," he said, matching my smile. "Now let's eat."

"Alright."

We sat down, and I dug in with gusto. "You haven't forgotten about tomorrow, have you?" he asked suddenly.

"Tomorrow…hmm…what could be happening tomorrow…?"

He glowered. "Diana."

I laughed. "Of course I remember. Six pm, the manor. Your parents' anniversary."

"Alright. I'd hate to deprive Mom of another chance to ask us when she's getting grandchildren."

"You make your mother sound like some kind of harpy," I smiled. "It's nice having a mother-in-law who likes me."

He squeezed my hand. "Diana, it would be impossible for anyone not to like you. Now shut up and eat, this took me ages."

"Oh is that why it's burnt?" I teased.

"That's the best fish you've ever tasted," he said in a quelling fashion.

"I'll be sure to let Alfred know that," I commented.

"Alright, I take it back," he said, a mock-fearful expression on his face.

I giggled. "All of Gotham's underworld after you, you can deal with. Alfred on the other hand…"

"I dare Maroni to face Alfred and not quake."

I could feel the stresses of the day draining away slowly as we ate, and by the end of the meal, we were curled up on the couch together, relaxed. He stroked my hair from my face and kissed my forehead. "You patrolling tonight?"

I shook my head. "Not unless the signal goes up. Most of the big ones are back inside. I think the police can cope without me for one night."

"And the League?" he asked, kissing me on the mouth this time, slow-burning passion igniting the spark inside me that his kisses always did.

"They can also cope. Plus Superman knows I'll kick his ass if he calls me in tonight," I murmured, kissing back and tilting my head to the side when he moved his mouth down my neck.

"Superman calls you in tonight and I'll kick his ass myself," my husband growled, picking me up and carrying me into our bedroom.

I wasn't complaining.

---

**A/N: Review please! **


	2. Missing

**A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed, I'm really happy you like the premise. Here's the next chapter - the hunt for Wonder Woman begins!**

**Chapter Two - Missing**

"Superman to Batman."

"What?" he demanded roughly. It was five am, and he was tired, and cold - and wet, thanks to Ivy deciding that choking the river with algae was a good idea.

Clark didn't waste time - a sure sign something was wrong. "Is Diana with you?"

The urgency in his voice was unmistakable, and instantly Bruce was alert. "No. Why?"

"She hasn't come back to the Watchtower since leaving this morning, and her com-link is off. No one has any idea where she is."

"So she's missing?" he barked.

"Yes."

"Be there in five minutes."

He didn't bother with changing - the breaking down and reassembling of his molecules would dry his suit during teleportation. It did not take long to get back to the Cave, and to grab another belt, already prepared. It would save time rather than refilling the pouches. A few seconds later, he was being beamed up to the Watchtower.

Clark was waiting for him, his face drawn with worry and trying not to show it. "She's not legally missing until she's been gone twenty four hours," Bruce said, his brain automatically running through possible options about where she could be.

"We're not talking about some kid who got lost on her way home from school, Batman," Superman said, crossing his arms. "Diana would have let us know if she wasn't coming back tonight."

"She's an adult, Clark. And more than capable of looking after herself." He stepped off the transporter platforms. "Tell me what you know."

Clark took a deep breath. He hadn't called Bruce as a friend, after all. He'd called the World's Greatest Detective. "She had lunch in Metropolis with Lois at one, then went shopping." He led Batman into the Monitor Womb, accessing some security footage of the robbery that Diana had seen. "A couple of hours later, this happened."

The thief could have been anyone; simple black clothing, face concealed by a balaclava. Female, but that hardy narrowed it down. It was a jewellery store, so he'd have thought Catwoman a possibility, were it not for the lack of ears - and besides, Selina was smarter than to rob somewhere in broad daylight, and with a member of the Justice League only feet away. Diana was hardly difficult to miss, after all; the thief must have been aware of her presence. Which left one disturbing conclusion.

It had been a trap.

The footage continued - the thief burst into the shop, but in a very showy and frankly inefficient manner. It gave time for the owner to duck behind the counter and pull out a shotgun, then point it at the mysterious woman. He fired two shots, but the woman only raised an arm; the bullets shimmered in mid-air, and suddenly turned into doves.

Clark gasped; Bruce cursed. "Circe!"

"What? How do you know?" Superman demanded.

Bruce ignored him; Diana had just appeared on screen. She spoke a few words to the owner, then flew out of the shop after Circe. After she'd gone there was nothing else of significance to look at.

He turned back to Superman. "Definitely Circe."

"How do you know?"

"I've seen her do that trick before. We have to assume that the robbery was a trap set for Diana. And that she fell into it."

"So where do we start?"

Bruce pointed at the screen, now showing the police in the shop. "There."

---

I suppressed a sigh as I looked at my watch. Five thirty. No way was I going to be on time. Bruce was going to kill me. In an effort to hasten the head of faculty along, I tapped my fingers on the desk in the classic picture of feminine irritation. My nails made little crescents in the wood. I grimaced, and put my palm over the marks, hoping no one would notice. Not for the first time, it occurred to me how much I hated maintaining my secret identity. It went against everything that had been instilled into me from birth - I was an Amazon, I did not hide who I was!

But then I'd look at my husband, and his family, and be reminded of why it was necessary. The secret identity wasn't to protect me; it was to protect them. I twiddled my wedding band around with an idle smile. _And I would do anything to protect him. _

The next sigh escaped my lips before I could stop it; embarrassingly loud. Professor Swann, head of the Ancient History Department, looked up with narrowed eyes. "Anything you'd like to add, Doctor Wayne?"

I shook my head. "No, Professor," I replied, unable to stop tapping my fingers again.

It was times like this I envied Superman - there was a wastepaper bin in the corner overflowing with rubbish. One quick shot of laser vision and I'd have a perfect distraction with which to make my escape. Unfortunately laser vision was one talent the goddesses had not seen fit to endow me with.

Thankfully though, Hera seemed to have heard my prayer, since Professor Swann wrapped up the meeting quickly. I rushed out of the room before anyone could stop me. The urge to simply spin into my uniform and fly to Wayne Manor was strong; there'd be no chance of me getting caught in traffic that way. Of course, it would be difficult to explain to my co-workers how I'd gotten home without my car, and why Wonder Woman was going to the manor anyway, but quicker.

I may have broken a few speed-limits driving from the University of Gotham City and out of the city centre, but better that than being late, I supposed. Hera knew I'd been late to too many things like this - including missing Bruce's last birthday altogether because I'd been stuck in Tartarus with Shayera. They'd never said it, but I was fairly certain that Bruce's parents had worked out who I was by now. Either that or they were saints.

Today was Thomas and Martha's fortieth wedding anniversary - of course there would be the big, socialite-filled party tomorrow, but tonight it was just a quiet dinner with the family.

I parked outside the manor at six-oh-two exactly. The door opened just as I climbed the steps. "Good evening, madam."

I smiled. "Hello, Alfred. I'm not too late I hope?"

"Not at all," he assured me. "I'm running slightly late with dinner myself."

I grinned and squeezed his hand briefly. The doors to the drawing room opened and Bruce appeared. "There you are!" He came towards me, kissing me briefly. "Traffic bad?"

I shook my head. "Faculty meeting. Swann wouldn't stop talking."

He wrapped an arm around my shoulders. "I bet he would if he knew you could break him in half."

I smirked. "The temptation is there, believe me."

He returned the smirk and opened the door to the drawing room. Martha sat on the couch reading while it looked as though Bruce and his father were in the middle of a chess game. They both looked up, smiling at me as we came in.

Martha got up. "Diana."

I grinned and embraced her - gently. "Happy anniversary! How are you, Martha?"

"Just fine, honey. You?"

I chuckled. "Tired. And not particularly happy with the new syllabus, but since I'm not head of the faculty..."

"Give it a few more years," Thomas said, also getting up to greet me.

I suppressed a grimace - more responsibility was not really what I needed, and I was happy where I was. I liked my job, my students were quick-learners, I loved my husband deeply. I was...content. It was a good feeling.

---

**A/N: Review please!**


	3. Readiness

**A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed! **

**Chapter Three - Readiness**

Before I met Bruce's parents, I hadn't been at all sure what to expect. Having raised such a son I couldn't imagine they were anything less than good people, but for all I knew they could have been good, but very austere and reserved people.

I had enough austerity from my mother - I know she loves me, but unless we're alone, it's very clear that she is Queen and I am another Amazon. Less than that, now. My exile from Themyscira had come just a week after I met Bruce for the first time, and between then and Shayera and I going to Tartarus, I hadn't seen my mother for more than two years, with no contact either.

In that time, I lost count of the number of instances that I'd broken down on Martha's shoulder when the longing for home became too intense. Bruce would comfort me when I went to him; he'd never failed me, but there were times when I needed my mother. No one could ever replace her, but I'd be eternally grateful to Martha for treating me as her daughter, even before Bruce and I married.

It was a little more awkward with Thomas - he was no less welcoming than his wife, but I'd never had experience of a father, and couldn't imagine what role he had to play in raising children - it certainly had not been needed on Themyscira. It took me a while watching their family before I saw how much Bruce needed both of them, and they him. I still firmly believed that on Themyscira, men weren't needed, but perhaps here in Man's World things were different.

I squeezed Bruce's hand across the table. My children would have a father, and I had no doubt that he would make his parents very proud.

He smiled and squeezed back.

I speared the last piece of banoffee pie on my plate with a dessert fork and sighed at the last little piece of sweetness on my tongue. I'd been to Michelin starred restaurants that served food of a poorer quality than Alfred created. Finally finished with the meal, I picked up my wine glass.

"A toast."

The three of them picked up their glasses, and we held them together. "I can't imagine two people more suited for each other. Happy anniversary," I smiled. "May you have many, many more."

Thomas smiled. "Thank you, Diana."

We drank, and then Bruce got up. "Excuse me, I'll be right back. Why don't you go sit in the lounge?"

His mother raised an eyebrow in askance at me. "Where's he going?"

"Probably to get your gift," I said with a grin.

"I thought we said no gifts," Thomas said dryly with a half-smile.

I took his arm as we went into the living room. "Did you? I don't seem to recall that conversation..."

"You've been spending far too much time around Alfred," he chuckled. "He always seems to 'forget' things like that too."

"I'm quite certain I have no idea what you mean, Master Wayne," the aforementioned butler said as he came into the room bearing coffee. Bruce was just behind him, carrying our gift.

Thomas and Martha exchanged a quizzical look, and I smiled. It was an oddly shaped present (thin and flat, but large), but from the moment Bruce had suggested it I knew it would perfect. He handed it to his father and sat next to me, taking my hand again. I hadn't actually seen it yet, since Bruce had been the one to pick it up from the store this afternoon.

I knew what it was supposed to look like, and judging by their expressions when they unwrapped it, it was as we'd imagined. It was a huge photo frame, filled with pictures of Thomas and Martha as children, then teenagers and with a picture of their wedding in the centre. Moving down there was a photograph of a young Bruce, with finally a picture of our wedding at the bottom.

Martha looked up, tears in her eyes and a grin on her face. "It's beautiful. Thank you both so much."

"What's the empty space for?" Thomas asked, turning it around and showing it to us.

I frowned - all the pictures that were supposed to be there were there, but there was a black space at the bottom, waiting to be filled. I turned to my husband. "Bruce?"

He smiled at me, then turned back to his parents. "Well...it hasn't happened yet, but that's...for your grandchildren."

I blinked, then tried and failed to stop a trembling grin from spreading across my face. "Really?"

He nodded and kissed my forehead. "When you're ready."

---

Superman didn't wait for the Batwing to land next to him before he entered the jewellery store. The clean-up hadn't happened yet, and there was still broken glass everywhere, which his feet crunched into powder as he stepped on it.

He found nothing unusual for a burglary - apart from the fact that nothing had actually been stolen.

"Nothing out of the ordinary."

Clark tried and failed not to jump at Batman's voice. The man could even walk on broken glass silently. "Not that I can see." He did a quick x-ray scan of the walls, ceiling and floor. There was nothing hidden there either. "So Diana was the target," he sighed.

"Well done; you've learnt how to repeat."

Clark clenched his teeth and reminded himself that Bruce was being more difficult than usual only because Diana was missing. Not that he'd ever be winning people-person of the year normally. Clark knew some of how he felt. Diana was his best friend, but never more than that - but Bruce and Diana...they'd never been friends. At least not for long, anyway. And though Clark was by no means stupid, there was no way on earth he'd be able to put a name to how they felt about each other.

Bruce pulled out a flashlight and exited the shop from the backdoor, Superman following him. They found themselves in an alley, with several warehouses leading off it. They were all huge, and it could take hours to search them properly.

Batman produced a thermal imaging scanner from his belt. It beeped a few times as he walked slowly down the alley, but didn't pick up anything bigger than a few rates and furnaces. It wasn't until they were at the end of the alley that he stopped.

Clark peered over his shoulder - it showed a red and yellow shape inside the warehouse facing them. Significantly bigger than a rat. "Is that...?"

"Let's see."

Superman tried to keep the hope from his thoughts. If she was warm, she was alive. The door was locked, and no matter which of his lock-picks Bruce tried, he couldn't open the door. Worryingly, neither could Clark. It was as if the more he pushed against it, the stronger the resistance got. Eventually, and sweating slightly, he stepped back.

"I can't move it."

"Obviously. Can you break through the walls?"

He tried, and nothing. Bruce considered, then pulled out his grapple and shot up to the roof. Clark suppressed a sigh and followed. An explanation would have been nice. _But then this is Batman. _When he landed on the roof, Bruce was already planting a small mine onto a skylight. The window shattered and they looked down into the building. The reason for Clark's inability to get into the building was obvious; there was a purple energy field shimmering just below the window, apparently unchanged by the explosion.

"What is that?"

Bruce put a cautious hand out, but his glove passed through the force-shield with no impairment. "Stay on your guard," Bruce warned him, then rappelled down silently, Clark floating next to him.

Once they were on the floor, Bruce merged into the darkness, only the beeping of his scanner letting Superman know where he was. Suddenly his flashlight flicked on, and he indicated. "There's another signal over there. Check it out."

Clark nodded and floated off in the indicated direction. There wasn't much light to see by, but there was enough for him to spot a lump lying on the floor. His hearing also picked up the sound of heavy breathing - but when he got there, his heart sank. It wasn't Diana - in fact it appeared to be a very large, very in-pain tiger. He x-rayed it, his mouth twisting in sympathy. No wonder the poor thing was in pain; its ribs had been crushed, with one punctured through a lung. It would be kinder to kill it - but he'd leave that to the authorities. Killing was not something he'd ever do, even to a tiger.

"I found a tiger," Bruce's voice came over his com-link. "It's skull is fractured; I think it's brain-dead."

Clark nodded. "Yeah. I...found something too."

He waited half a second too long to explain, so consequently winced when Batman's bark went off in his ear.

"Well?"

"No. It's not her."

There was the crunching of metal, and Clark didn't need to see to know that Bruce's fist had made an impact with the wall. He winced; that wouldn't hurt him, but he was pretty sure Batman's very human bones wouldn't be thanking him later.

The Man of Steel sighed and looked around, frowning and feeling, if possible, more worried than he had before. If - _when - _they found her...he wondered if they were going to be ready.

Clark bit his lip. _Where are you, Diana?_

---

**A/N: I know Diana's dream-life is so perfect it's sickening, but it's supposed to be like that. Heart's desire, after all. Review please!**


	4. Search

**A/N: Thank you for the reviews! Here's the next chapter, enjoy.**

**Chapter Four - Search**

"Diana."

I smiled widely and embraced my queen. "Mother."

My visits home hadn't exactly been rare, but they'd not been frequent either, at least not till recently. The relationship between my mother and I had begun to heal as well. She'd been extraordinarily angry with me at first for marrying a mortal - a _man_, but...she'd accepted it, reluctantly, after meeting Bruce. He may not have been a hero in terms of the kind of violence that Superman and I engaged in day to day, but in some ways, what Bruce did was harder, was more courageous. There was certainly no way that Mother could tell me that my husband was no hero.

"My heart is glad to see you well, my little sun and stars," she said as we drew back.

"As mine is you," I replied.

She took my arm and led me through the private gardens I'd played in as a child. For a while we walked in pleasant silence, enjoying the breeze and the scent of the flowers.

"Now, how fares your mortal?" she asked eventually.

I nodded. "Well." She may have come round to the fact that I loved Bruce, but I'd learned to keep our conversations about him to a minimum.

Instead of the short nod I expected, my mother's expression gentled into a smile. "Ah, love. It is such a treasure, wherever it comes from."

I stopped walking and disengaged my arm, frowning. "That was not your attitude once upon a time." What by Olympus had changed now?

My mother's expression was regretful. "No, and I am sorry for that." She grimaced. "I feared I was losing my daughter."

Realisation dawned. That made sense, but I couldn't believe that my mother could be afraid of that; she knew how strong my loyalty to the Amazons and Themyscira was. "Mother, I will always be your daughter." I smiled and embraced her again, then pulled back. She needed to understand something. "But for now Man's World is my home. _Bruce_ is my home."

To my relief, she nodded. "I know." Her expression grew distant, and I knew she was thinking of Hades and their doomed love affair. "At least you have found a good man to love you." She refocused on me with a solemn nod. "But remember that Themyscira is always here...when you are ready."

I nodded. I knew that that one day Bruce would die - that was inevitable, and it was only through Bruce's being able to accept my immortality that we now had the stable marriage we did. But one day he would succumb to time, and I knew that it would destroy me when he did. Wonder Woman would leave Man's World then, and I would return to Themyscira forever. "I know."

She nodded. "But let's talk of happier things," she said, changing the subject. "How are your friends? Shayera?"

I grinned. "She's well; about to give birth in fact."

"Well then you must take an offering to Artemis for a safe birth and a healthy baby," she told me.

I nodded. "I will."

"And how is your city?" my mother asked me. "You are winning your war on the darkness I hope?"

"So do I," I sighed. "I would liked to think I am winning." My face fell into pensiveness. It was so difficult to tell with Gotham. "I...I love Gotham, I love its people, and I think things are improving." I shrugged. "Thanks to the League things are improving all over the world."

"It is always gratifying for the warrior to see the spoils of victory," she noted.

"Oh I would not call it victory, at least not yet," I returned. "It is coming though. The dawn is not far away." _I hope. _

The rest of the day passed quickly, but I couldn't stay for longer; I had a stack of term-papers to grade after all. After I'd taken an offering to the goddess of childbirth and shared a meal with my mother, I left Themyscira.

"Do not stay away so long, Diana," she told me with a hug.

"I won't. Goodbye, Mother."

"Hera watch over you, my little sun and stars."

"And you." I put a hand to my ear and activated my com-link. "Wonder Woman to Watchtower. One for transport."

---

Three weeks. _Three weeks_ with no sign of Diana. Not a ransom note, not even any knowledge of whether she was alive or dead. The not knowing was worst of all. She could be anywhere.

Bruce had exhausted his contacts. So far they'd managed to hide the fact that Wonder Woman was missing; none of the billions of people on the planet's surface knew a thing.

In all fairness, the Joker had escaped yet again, and Batman had his hands more than full at the moment trying to protect Gotham and its citizens. But every minute he had spare, he spent trying to track Diana down. And he'd hit not one, but at least a dozen brick walls. Superman likewise. The other founders knew now too, but the rest of the League were still in the dark. The excuse of Diana going home to visit her mother wasn't too hard to believe, after all.

While on monitor duty that particular night, Bruce was tracking her every way he could think of. And none of them were working - they all kept pointing back to Diana being onboard the Watchtower. The satellite had, of course, been scoured top to bottom.

When Dove came to relieve him, Bruce collected a triple espresso from the commissary and headed down to the Cave. To run the same programmes he had on the Watchtower, but on Earth. As if that would make a difference.

A voice called him from behind. "Hey!" He turned to see Zatanna jogging towards him, one hand on her hat to make sure it stayed on. Relief that he wasn't showing filled him. For the last month Zatanna had been on the astral plane, totally unreachable for him to get her to track Diana down. He didn't understand why she'd be looking for him though.

"What is it?" he asked flatly.

She grabbed his arm and pulled him into the nearest closet. Batman raised an eyebrow and waited for an explanation of her odd behaviour. "Is it true Diana's missing?" she asked quickly.

He narrowed his eyes. "Where did you hear that?"

"It's a rumour going around," she said. "Is it true?"

He glared for a second, then shoulders slumped. "Yes. And we have no idea where she is; just that it's Circe who's taken her."

The magician gasped. "Again? What, turning her into a pig wasn't bad enough?"

"It didn't kill her," he pointed out.

Zatanna looked worried. "So you think this time-?"

"I don't know," he replied.

She swallowed. "Ok, well do you want me to-"

"Please," he interrupted. "But just find Diana," he told her. His voice dropped to a growl. "I'll take care of Circe after she's safe."

Zatanna nodded. "Alright, I'll do my best. But I need access to something of hers."

He left the closet and marched to Dormitory Deck A, Zatanna in his wake. He stopped outside Diana's quarters. "Override 001."

"Override recognised," the computer's cool voice responded. "User ID: Batman."

"Open this door," he ordered.

The doors slid slowly open. Batman and Zatanna went in. He gestured to Diana's things all about the room. "Pick your favourite."

She nodded, and walked over to the open closet, picking out the first item of clothing she found; Bruce's stomach twisted. That scarlet dress. Paris, Diana, hands on her hips and the challenging smirk on her face.

Zatanna sat on Diana's bed and closed her eyes, holding tightly onto the dress and muttering under her breath. The microphone attached to his belt captured the sound, and he'd be able to run it backwards later. Not that it mattered. She could be speaking Ancient Hebrew and as long as it found Diana he couldn't give a rat's ass what she was saying.

Once the magician stopped speaking, a frown creased her face as a slight hum filled the air. Suddenly two bright, glowing spots of light appeared in front of her face. Both moved slowly towards Zatanna, and sank into her skin just between her eyebrows. She opened her eyes with a deep breath.

Bruce was kneeling in front of her instantly. "Well?"

"I can...sense her essence in two places," she told him somewhat breathlessly. "It must be a trick of Circe's, but I can't tell which is the real Diana."

He nodded and stood up. "It's a hell of a lot better than we had before. Where are they?"

"Got a pen?" she asked.

He wordlessly handed her a pen and a pad of paper from a pouch in the belt. She jotted down some coordinates and handed it back to him. He tore it in half and gave one of the figures back to her. "Go with Superman to this one, I'll take the other. Stay in contact."

"But-"

He didn't wait to find out what she was going to say, and marched out of Diana's quarters. Were it not for the fact that Batman never ran through the Watchtower, he'd be sprinting.

---

**A/N: Review please!**


	5. Found

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews! Here's the next chappy! **

**Chapter Five - Found**

The coordinates Zatanna had given him were a Greek island, which didn't surprise him. He input them into the GPS on the Batwing and set off, splitting the sky in a black blur. The island of Piperi was tiny, with only two inhabitants (human ones at least), and access was strictly prohibited, since the island was a preservation site for many species of animals and plants.

He had a portable GPS as well, and took it out of his belt, following the directions until the last digit clicked into place. He was here. Wherever here was - there was nothing except more scraggly trees. And a lizard lounging on a rock and looking at him as if to ask what a human was doing invading his sanctuary.

"Damn it!" Batman said quietly.

He took another look around, examining every rock on the ground and every leaf on the trees- wait. On an olive tree to his left, there was something carved into the bark. He walked closer. It was a small depiction of Medusa's head. He frowned. Circe and Medusa had been cellmates in Tartarus. Another thing - the tree was huge. Definitely an olive, but bigger than most mahogany trees, with huge sprawling roots - one of which was revealing a hole.

He pulled out a flashlight and shone it inside. Still nothing but blackness; the hole obviously extended some way underground. Fighting back rising hopes, he crouched and crawled inside. The further he went in, the wider and higher the tunnel became, sloping down gently but steadily until he could walk along at full height. The natural daylight from outside faded quickly, and within a few moments he was walking in total darkness. The blue-white beam of his flashlight seemed to get steadily weaker until it was barely lighting the ground two feet in front of him. He activated the infrared in his cowl and carried on.

He was forced to stop when he came to a huge wall of stone, blocking the whole tunnel. Even through his gloves the stone was warm to the touch. Dry too, at odds with the moisture seeping through the walls of the tunnel. No, not a wall - a door. There were ruts in it that clearly indicated it had moved up and down at one time. Most likely at least two thousand years ago, and he had no idea how to get it moving now. If Superman had been with him...

Using the simplest and most direct method, Batman moved back, and threw an exploding batarang at it. It lodged in the stone, beeping in a warning tone for three seconds.

The door blew up, chunks of ancient stone flying in all directions but revealing a jagged hole in the middle. He walked through it - the chamber inside was like a scene from an Indiana Jones movie - the crumbling walls, the vaulted pillars, the shaft of sunlight beaming directly down to the centre of the room. Scratch that - a Disney movie, since the sunbeam was illuminating a princess on an altar.

"Diana!" He pushed down the urge to run to her side; this was Circe, after all. Who knew what kind of booby traps she might have set up around Diana. He moved slowly forward, testing the ground for pressure pads and the like. She was on her side facing away from him, and his brain was running through every horrible scenario it could - what injuries she might have, whether or not she was dead, how much blood she'd lost if she was wounded, how dehydrated or starved she might be.

He spend a good minute scrutinising every surface he could see, using the thermal and UV scanners he had with him, but they were all clear. There was nothing in the room but him and Diana. His sense of dread deepened. Circe wouldn't have just left her unprotected unless whatever she'd done to Diana was dire. He swallowed - the thermal image had shown the princess to be warm, so she was at least alive. _Or at least recently dead. _

Finally putting the gadgets away, Bruce gave in to his first impulse, and ran to her. It proved to be a mistake; ten feet before he reached her prone form, the floor gave way to an apparently endless pit. He'd had one hand on a grappling hook anyway, and managed to grab onto the altar that Diana lay on. The ground around it was still intact, and solid.

"Diana? Diana, can you hear me?"

No response, so he gently moved her onto her back.

From the moment he saw the first glimpse of purple tentacle wrapped around her neck, his stomach dropped. _Oh please no. _When the princess was fully on her back, though, the wide eyes, blank smile and total unresponsiveness would have told him everything he needed to know without seeing the plant.

The Black Mercy didn't have eyes, or teeth, but he swore it was grinning up at him anyway. His lip curled in a snarl. Damn Circe. Damn her to Hell. He'd bring her down now if it was the last thing he did.

Going against what every instinct was calling for, he didn't try to yank it off her. Doing so could result in him being ensnared again, and then Diana would be no better off - she'd been without food or water for weeks, and could be seriously weakened by that.

He brushed a strand of hair from her face. "Don't worry, Diana. I'll bring you back." Mouth set into a grim line, he put a hand to his ear. "Superman."

Clark's voice in his ear was eager, hopeful. "Yes?"

"Found her."

"Is she alright?" Clark demanded.

Bruce told the truth. "She's alive."

"What does-"

"I'm bringing her to the Watchtower," he interrupted, cutting the connection. Clark would know there was something wrong and get to the Watchtower as soon as he could, probably before he arrived. Moving quickly, Batman scooped Diana into his arms. "Batman to Watchtower. Two for immediate transport."

There was a flash of white light, and then they materialised on the Watchtower. As expected, Superman was standing there. Even before Bruce had emerged more than than his head and shoulders, Clark was asking questions. "What is it, what's wrong?" His eyes widened as he saw Diana. Or more accurately, what was on Diana's chest. His jaw dropped, but apparently there was nothing he could think of to say. Wally, standing just behind him, didn't have the same problem. "Oh my God."

Bruce didn't let him take a closer look, and only brushed past them both. "Infirmary, now!" Within twenty seconds Batman was barging into the med-bay, Superman and Flash just behind him. "J'onn!" He lay Diana gently onto a bed and continued to bark out orders. "Set up an IV."

"What the hell is that thing?" Wally asked.

"It's called the Black Mercy; a parasitic plant," Bruce told him grimly. "It's feeding off of her."

"So what do we do?"

Superman stepped forward, his face like thunder and his hands outstretched to Wonder Woman's unmoving body. "We rip the damn thing off her!"

Batman threw his arm out in front of Diana. "No!"

Clark's mouth fell open, before anger dawned on his face again. "What? Why the hell not?" Not waiting for an answer, he appealed to the medical expert. "J'onn?"

The Martian shook his head regretfully from Diana's bedside. "Unfortunately I have to agree with Batman." He looked at the Black Mercy again carefully, then straightened. "We have no idea how long she has been under the influence of the Black Mercy; if it has been since she disappeared then it could have had a profound effect on her psyche by now."

---

"Listen - help's not coming."

My eyes widened. "What do you mean it isn't coming?!" I demanded.

I heard the panic in my tone, but at this particular moment I didn't care. I knew I was way out of my depth. I sent up two prayers - the first to Hera, asking her to sort out what by Olympus had happened to the transporters and doors. The Watchtower was falling apart - Ollie's money was undoubtedly useful in building it, but he wasn't exactly diligent in its maintenance, and problems with the central computer were forever cropping up.

The second prayer went to Artemis, and was for the reason that required the first prayer.

I was stuck in the infirmary.

With Shayera.

Who had gone into labour two hours ago.

With J'onn, John and Kal off-world, and the doors locked permanently, only I was capable of breaking the door down to let others in. Every time I tried, however, Shayera told me to 'get my royal fucking ass' back over there. I reasoned that she was in a lot of pain, and me snapping back at her wouldn't help the situation.

Apparently Thanagarian labours were much shorter than human ones - and my fellow Leaguer was doing it with no pain-relief, as well as three weeks early.

I forced myself to calm down. "Wally, can you talk me through what to do?"

I could hear the clacking of keys over my com-link as Flash looked up the process of labour on the internet. I really hoped he managed to find a reliable website. "Um...ask her if she feels the need to push."

I looked up at Shayera's sweaty, grimacing face. "Shayera?"

"What?!"

"Do you want to push?"

Her fingers dug into the edges of the bed. "Of course I want to push, I'm having a fucking _baby_ for crying out loud!"

"Yes," I said succinctly to Flash.

"Ah."

I blanched. 'Ah' with Wally was never good. "What?"

"Well...um...basically...catch."

"Catch?!" I repeated incredulously.

"Yup. Too late to do anything else now."

I growled a Themysciran curse under my breath; something very old and not something that he deserved. "Great, thanks, Wally. Do me a favour, call my husband, tell him I'll be late." _Again. _

"Can do, Wondy!" he answered cheerily.

"Diana!" Shayera's voice was desperate. "What the hell are you doing?!"

"I'm here, I'm here!" I said hurriedly. "Ok, Shay...you have to push."

"No shit, Sherlock!" she snapped with a groan of pain.

It took another forty minutes, at least a dozen threats against John's life and many curses from Shayera before a red, screaming, tiny, perfectly formed, slimy, _beautiful _baby boy was born.

And, highly conveniently, John, Clark and J'onn returned from their mission. After being told that his wife had gone into labour, John shredded the doors to the med-bay trying to get in.

"Where the hell have you been?!" Shayera yelled at him, tears still streaming down her face.

I was wiping the baby down, wrapping him in a warm blanket before delivering him back to his mother. She promptly burst into tears again, followed swiftly by John. Clark put a hand on my shoulder. "Well done," he smiled.

I smiled and looked down at myself. I was as sweaty and unkempt as Shayera was. "I wasn't the one who did all the work," I told him.

He pulled me into a brief hug. "Well done all the same."

"Thanks." I sighed and glanced at the time. One am GMT, which meant eight pm in Gotham. I was already late for Thomas and Martha's anniversary party. I let go of Kal and moved over to Shayera, kissing her on the forehead. "Congratulations. And I'm sorry to leave so quickly, but I have to go."

She caught my hand and smiled at me, not saying anything. I knew what she wanted to say, and squeezed back. John intercepted me on my way out and hugged me. "Thank you, Diana. Thank you so much."

I nodded. "Anytime."

Once he'd let go, I flew to the hanger and got into the jet, one thought in mind. _Bruce is going to kill me..._

---

**A/N: Review please! **


	6. Deception

**A/N: Thank you for the reviews, and I will reply at a later date :) For now: enjoy!**

**Chapter Six – Deception**

I winced slightly as the doors creaked open at the expression on Alfred's face. It wasn't exactly disapproving, but it wasn't pleased, either. Still, he wouldn't say anything, even if he was thinking it.

"Am I very very late?" I asked anxiously.

"You are late, madam, but Master Bruce received your message, and managed to delay proceedings slightly. The toast hasn't yet been given."

I nodded. "I'm sorry, Alfred."

His grey eyes softened slightly. "It is alright, madam. I'm sure it was as urgent a situation as you say."

I nodded. "It was. Where's Bruce?"

"In the ballroom with the guests, madam. Your evening wear is upstairs."

I'd managed to change into civvies before leaving the Watchtower, though my uniform was on under them. Still, I was sure I looked as hot and sweaty as I felt. "Thank you, Alfred."

He nodded, and I sprinted up the stairs to the bedroom Bruce and I shared whenever we stayed at the manor. At the top of the stairs, I collided with Martha, coming the other way. "Diana!"

I caught her before her heels gave way and she fell down the stairs. "Martha, I'm so sorry I'm late, there was this thing, and I couldn't get away until a few minutes ago and-"

She cut me off with a gentle smile. "Diana, it's you; I know you have a good reason. Don't worry about a thing."

I smiled, tried not to blush. _She knows. She has to know by now_. "Thank you. Just give me five minutes to get changed and I'll be good to go."

"Oh no hurry, Thomas isn't ready yet either. Can't find his 'anniversary' cufflinks, so I've been dispatched to have a search."

"I'm sure Bruce has a spare pair," I said. "Though they probably won't be the same."

"Oh, good idea."

Once we'd reached the bedroom, I located a pair of spare cufflinks and handed them over. "They don't look too similar," my mother-in-law said. Then she winked at me. "But we just won't tell him. His jacket will cover them anyway. Thanks, honey."

I smiled. "No problem."

She left, and I opened the closet; hanging up in a plastic sleeve was the green silk dress I'd bought for the occasion. Forgoing the shower that I desperately needed, I simply rinsed my face and changed, putting my hair up into a loose bun. I'd be less-than-polished, but that couldn't be helped.

Checking there was no one around, I floated down the hallway putting my shoes on as I went, and finally made it to the ballroom, and slipped inside. Bruce spotted me immediately, breaking away from the group of (terribly attractive, my jealousy noted) women he'd been talking to.

My jealousy went away at the genuine and dazzling smile he gave me. And then the embrace and kiss immediately after that. "Everything okay?" he asked me in an undertone. "Flash said something about an emergency?"

I nodded. "Shayera. She went into labour – I ended up playing midwife."

His eyebrows shot up. "Wow. How'd it go?"

"Not a career I think I'll be pursuing, put it that way," I smirked.

"Mother and baby?"

"Both doing well when I left," I smiled. "It was a boy."

"Apple of his mom's eye already, no doubt," Bruce said dryly.

"Of course," I replied. "Though with good reason; he's absolutely gorgeous."

He kissed my temple. "Not as gorgeous as our children will be."

I smiled, and he took my hand. "Dance with me."

We made our way into the middle of the dance-floor, and he pulled me close as I relaxed against him. "I think Alfred's annoyed at me for arriving late," I told him.

Bruce chuckled. "He's not annoyed at you – he's irritated that Mom and Dad aren't down here yet. I think you compounded it."

I grinned. "Well now that your father has a pair of cufflinks, I shouldn't think they'll be too long."

My husband rolled his eyes. "Every year. Let me guess: he couldn't find the 'anniversary' cufflinks?"

"I think your mother said something about that, yes," I nodded. "Why? Is this a regular occurrence?"

He grinned. "Yep. It's an annual one, in fact. As much of a tradition as the anniversary itself."

The ballroom doors both opened wide, and Alfred appeared as he bowed slightly to the assembled guests. "Ladies and gentlemen, announcing Mr Thomas and Mrs Martha Wayne."

Everyone began applauding as they came in, somehow managing to look both overwhelmingly happy and distinguished. The applause went on for a while before it was time for Bruce to make his toast. I'd been listening to him rehearse it for weeks now, and it somehow brought tears to my eyes every time.

"Right, before I start, does everyone have some champagne? I'd hate to have to do this all over again in five minutes' time." He took a deep breath. "Everything I've learned in my entire life: walking, talking, reading – arguing," he added to chuckles throughout the room, "I've learned from my mom and dad. Dad taught me how to ride a bike, Mom taught me how to paint. Well, she tried. But mostly, my parents taught me about love. Watching them, I learned what love looks like. How it can light up a room, a home. A life. And if it weren't for my mom and dad teaching me about love-" He looked at me, lifted my hand and kissed it before continuing, "I don't think I would have found it myself."

My tears were starting up again. I held them back as he finished, holding up his champagne flute. "So here's to my parents – for being the image of what love should be."

---

"So we just leave her?" Clark exclaimed.

"No," J'onn said. "But I will attempt to reach into her mind and help Diana to break through the fantasy."

Bruce and Clark relaxed slightly. It had been excruciating, having to choose between fantasy and reality without any real help. For Diana it would be no less painful, but at least she'd have J'onn to help her out. It would be hard, but she'd have guidance.

"Now?" Wally asked.

"Soon," J'onn said. "Diana's physiology is able to maintain itself for far longer than a normal human, but she will be dehydrated at the least, and she will need feeding intravenously until she can shake off the Black Mercy. Once those things are set up I'll go into her mind. "

They all nodded, and J'onn crossed to the supply cabinet, pulling out what he needed. Batman, Superman and Flash all continued to watch over Diana. "So I take it you guys have seen this thing before?"

Clark nodded. "We've both been through what Diana is now."

"Which is what, exactly?" Wally's voice peaked with worry. "I mean, is she in pain?"

Bruce stayed silent, leaving Clark to explain. "The opposite," the Kryptonian sighed. "The Mercy is telepathic. It discovers your heart's desire and then...creates a world for you where you have it, whatever it might be."

"Oh. So...she's happy?" he asked. "I guess that explains the smile."

"It's fake," Bruce said bitterly, his hands curling into fists. "It's all fake, all of it. When we get that thing off her..." He couldn't finish.

Clark did. "...we'll be breaking her heart."

"Well we don't know that," Wally pointed out hopefully. "Maybe she's happy here; she could have just-"

J'onn interrupted as he pushed the needle into the crook of Diana's elbow. "If that were the case, then I don't think the Black Mercy would have been able to keep hold of her."

The IV set up, with fluids and glucose to top up her blood-sugar levels, J'onn drew up a chair next to Diana's bedside. "I'll attempt to break through its grip on her mind now."

"Good luck," Clark said.

Bruce did not look away from Diana's face. "Bring her back to us, J'onn."

The Martian nodded, then put his hands either side of Diana's face, his eyes glowing.

There was silence for a moment before Flash broke it again.

"So...what did you guys see?"

Neither Superman nor Batman answered him.

---

"It was beautiful, Shay. If possible...I think I fell in love with him all over again."

Onscreen, Shayera's face laughed. "Yeah right. I've never seen anyone _more _devoted than you. You're like a lovesick puppy."

"Hey!" I protested. "Not true."

"No, I guess it's not. The pair of you are lovesick puppies."

"Changing the subject now..." I warned her.

Despite the fact that it was against League regulation to make personal calls from the monitor room, I didn't think anyone would mind. I was a Founder, after all, and throughout my duty, it had all been quiet.

"How's the baby?" I asked.

"He's good; hungry little tyke," she sighed. "Wants feeding every hour, I swear."

"Have you thought of a name for him yet?"

She nodded, smiling once again. "John finally made up his damn mind."

"So?" I asked eagerly.

"Rex," my friend said. "Rex Stewart."

I repeated the name softly, then nodded. "I like it."

"Then will you be his godmother?"

Uh-oh. More tears. Refusing to let them out, I only nodded. "I'd be honoured."

Shayera looked away, and in the background a faint, high-pitched cry could be heard. "I've got to go, Di. Speak to you later."

"Bye."

A few moments later, Mr Terrific relieved me, and I headed toward the transporter room for Gotham. On my way, I ran into J'onn, looking very relieved to see me, who hugged me in greeting. A little surprised, I hugged back anyway. Since marrying, J'onn had been picking up habits that were a lot more human lately, though thankfully not the bad ones. And being quite a tactile person myself, I didn't mind my best friend meeting me with a hug.

"How are you, Diana?" he asked.

I smiled. "Can't complain," I replied, tilting my head. "I thought you went home already?"

"Not yet," he said. "I'm handling all the psychological evaluations for League members over the next few days. If you have a few spare minutes we could do yours quickly?"

I shrugged and followed him into the consultation room. "Sure."

He sat down, indicating for me to do the same. I did so, but he continued to watch me without speaking for a moment. Slightly concerned, I spoke out. "J'onn, are you feeling alright? You don't seem yourself."

His face relaxed into a smile. "I'm fine – just been working too hard lately."

I nodded. "Well that doesn't surprise me. Though I though Xuin would have been more insistent about you taking some time off. Isn't it her birthday soon?"

"Yes, I'm taking her to Paris for it," he replied. "She's never been to Europe."

My mind flashed to our honeymoon. "Paris... It's a truly beautiful city," I said somewhat wistfully.

He nodded. "It is indeed."

J'onn put his hands together in a business-like manner. "Right, shall we begin?"

"Of course."

"Then please name for me the seven founding members of the Justice League."

I cocked an eyebrow. "Pretty simple, don't you think?"

He nodded. "Yes, but we'll start with the basics."

"Alright," I agreed. "Superman, you, myself, Flash, Hawkgirl, Green Lantern and Green Arrow."

As I said the last name, J'onn's eyes narrowed fractionally. "Green Arrow?"

I shot him a puzzled glance. "Yes. And...that's everybody."

"Quite. Your mother's name?" he continued.

"Hippolyta."

"Good. Can you name for me the cities of America protected by specific heroes?"

"Metropolis – Superman. Central City – Flash."

"And Gotham?" he asked.

I frowned slightly. "Me."

He nodded slowly. "Alright. The name you used to conceal your identity when you first arrived here?"

"Diana Prince," I answered. He nodded, and then paused. "Anything else?" I asked.

"Do you have any children?"

"No. Though I do have something to tell you about that," I said, not able to hide my smile. "We-"

Superman's voice went off in my ear. "_Diana? You're needed in the monitor room._"

"On my way, Clark," I told him, before smiling at J'onn. "Are we done here, J'onn?"

"I believe so," he nodded.

"Alright," I smiled. "See you later."

---

"What do you mean you can't do anything?" Bruce barked across the conference table.

J'onn's expression was apologetic. "I mean there is nothing I can do. The Black Mercy blocks any attempts to reach further into Diana's mind."

"Why?" Clark frowned.

J'onn frowned. "I believe the problem is that I offer nothing she does not have. In her fantasy Diana is still a member of the Justice League; she still has all her friends. My presence is no shock to her."

"So what now?"

"We must try something different - I suggest that someone Diana does not have in her fantasy go into her mind and try and shock her out of it."

"She's unlikely to listen to a stranger," Shayera pointed out.

"I am not suggesting a stranger," J'onn said solemnly. He looked at Bruce. "I suggest Batman."

That hurt.

Did she really hate him so much that her perfect world was a life without him in it? He knew he'd wounded her, spurning her advances, but surely she'd gotten over that by now? Their friendship hadn't suffered for it...unless she was only pretending each time she smiled at him. But that wasn't possible - Diana wasn't _capable _of deception. Was she?

---

**A/N: Review please!**


	7. Revelation

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews!**

**Chapter Seven - Revelation**

He pushed down what felt disturbingly like heartbreak, and focused on the logistics. "I'm no telepath. How can I connect to Diana's mind?"

"I can act as a bridge for you," J'onn explained. "I won't be able to access either of your minds, but I should be able to help you enter Diana's mind."

Bruce nodded. "Good. Can we do it now? Or do you need to rest?" he added sharply. Realising that he was sounding both very impatient and slightly desperate, Bruce didn't object when Clark spoke up.

"J'onn. If you need to rest that's fine," he said. "You won't do any good if you're exhausted."

Flash made the mistake of trying for levity. "Yeah, and it's not like Diana's going anywhere."

To keep from breaking something – probably one of Wally's limbs – Bruce shoved his chair back and stalked from the room. Without thinking, he headed to the infirmary. No matter how accommodating Kent was prepared to be, he couldn't just sit there and do nothing while Diana was _in there_, seeing God knew what, _being _God knew what- Bruce stopped and sighed, forcing himself to admit the truth. Wally was right; while Diana was in there, and while she had been for weeks, she was in no danger. She was in _paradise... _

But she was in paradise without him. She was seeing whatever she was seeing without him. She was _being _something else, someone else, _without him_. And that was excruciating.

"_Oracle to Batman._"

Startled from his contemplation of Diana's hatefully serene face, Batman put his hand to his ear. "Go ahead."

"_Trouble. City Hall's being covered in vines._"

"Ivy?" he assumed. "On my way."

Forcing himself not to glance at Diana again, he left the med-bay and went to the transporter room.

**---**

The doors hissed open, and I stepped into the monitor room. "What is it?"

Mr Terrific glanced at me. "Trouble in Gotham."

_Well yes, I got that_, I thought in mild amusement. I walked over to him and looked more closely at the screen. City Hall was being covered in vines. "Ivy," I said. On the other side of the room, Superman looked in question at me. I shook my head with a smile. "Nothing I can't handle. I'll swing by on my way home."

"You sure you don't need help?" Clark asked.

Gotham was my city just as Metropolis was his, but if I needed help then I'd ask for it. This wasn't one of those times, however. "I'm sure, Kal, thanks. See you tomorrow," I waved as I left the monitor womb and heading to my plane.

"Tomorrow?" he called after me.

I turned at the doors. "Bruce's press conference?" I asked. "Unless you're not interested in his opinion of how long the Joker's sentence should be _this time_?"

He blinked. "Oh right, press conference."

I grinned; sometimes he really was the scatter-brained reporter he pretended to be. "Bye, Clark."

"Wait, why are you going to be there?" he frowned.

"I'm not," I replied. "Diana Wayne is."

"Oh right."

"Goodnight, Clark."

"Let me know when Ivy's in custody," he replied.

"I will."

It didn't take me long to get to Gotham. When I arrived, City Hall had been completely lost under the vines Ivy had wrapped around it – and was apparently being guarded – by..._giant Venus fly traps? _The woman herself was sat comfortably in a huge lily of some kind, looking quite at her ease. I didn't bother with the 'stop this now' speech, and only launched into action. Around the building, the GCPD had tankers full of industrial-strength pesticide. Of course, it wouldn't do much except force the plants back a few feet, but at least it was keeping the vines away from the other buildings around City Hall.

---

In the end, when Batman arrived, action was actually completely unnecessary. Harley Quinn and Ivy had banded together in one of their occasional team-ups – the Joker had apparently temporarily tired of Harley – in order to prove that they were just as capable of bringing chaos to Gotham as the Clown Prince.

Fortunately for Gotham, Harley had somehow got the idea that Poison Ivy was attempting to steal the Joker from her, and when Batman touched down on the rooftop of City Hall, no plants attacked him, since Ivy was too busy engaging in a catfight with Harley. Briefly he considered just waiting for them to knock each other out, but decided against it. There was always the chance that they might actually kill each other, after all.

Still, two bolos did the job quickly enough.

Both women glared at him. "Hey!" Ivy protested. "I wasn't done kicking her ass!"

"Aw, Bats, why'd ya have to ruin it? This is serious – she's tryin' to steal Mister J from me!"

Rolling his eyes under his cowl, Bruce dragged them down to where the police were waiting, and handed them over to Gordon. "That seemed too easy," the commissioner commented. "You don't think it could have been a trap?"

Batman shook his head. "Doubtful. Harley's convinced Ivy and the Joker are having an affair."

Jim was as familiar as Bruce was with Harley Quinn and her fluctuating moods, so only snorted and motioned for the police to put the two criminals into the van. "Anything else?" Batman asked.

"Not that I know of," Gordon said, motioning to his men to take Ivy and Harley to Arkham. "Unless you –"

He turned to find Batman had already gone. "Never going to get used to that..." the commissioner muttered under his breath.

In fact, Bruce wasn't far away; still close enough, in fact, to hear Gordon's last sentence. "Batman to Watchtower," he said into his com-link.

Clark's voice answered to him. "_Was just about to contact you; J'onn says he's ready to try it._"

Bruce's heart surged. "Transport me up."

"_Alright._"

A few seconds later, he materialised onboard the Watchtower, and made his way quickly to the infirmary. The other Founders were already in there, all looking at the thing on Diana's chest with expressions that ranged from sympathy or barely-concealed rage.

Bruce wasn't angry at the Black Mercy; what would be the point? The plant itself wasn't evil – it was only doing what it had evolved to do, after all. No, Bruce's rage lay with Circe, and with himself.

He had dangerously underestimated Circe, assumed that just because she had been pacified with a song last time, her desire for vengeance against the Amazon nation had been satiated. It hadn't been the song itself that had placated her; it had been the loss of his dignity. Now Diana was about to lose hers – beside the fact that the loss of her fantasy would hurt immensely, no doubt Diana would be humiliated by the fact that she'd been overcome by the Mercy to begin with. When this was over, she'd want to hunt Circe to the ends of the earth.

Well, that was fine by him. He'd be right by her side.

J'onn looked up as he entered, indicating the seat beside him. "I need your hand, Batman," he explained. "I'll create a bridge between your minds, but other than that I won't be able to help you."

Bruce nodded. "Will I be able to act as an independent entity in her fantasy?"

"You should be," J'onn replied. "I was unable to, since to Diana I already have an assigned place in her fabricated life. You don't, so you should be able to act as you wish. Similarly anything you use in reality, you should be able to use there."

"So batarangs, listening devices..."

"Will all function, in theory," J'onn confirmed.

Batman nodded. "Alright, let's do this."

J'onn extended his hand, taking Diana's with his other. Bruce took an imperceptible deep breath and put his hand in J'onn's. There was the same sensation that he felt when going through a boom tube; that sucking, stretching sensation. When he opened his eyes again, it was to another world.

---

As I landed, Montoya ran up to me. "Site-rep?" I asked.

"Commissioner Gordon and the mayor are both inside," she said. "Along with the city health inspector, and the D.A."

I felt my blood turn cold in my veins, but refused to let it show. If one _hair _on his head was out of place then there'd be hell to pay. I looked at Montoya. "I'll get Ivy. Keep doing what you're doing; make sure the vines don't spread."

She nodded. "Good luck."

I acknowledged her with a nod, then lifted into the air again, heading for Ivy. As soon I as I got anywhere near to the roof, however, vines shot out, aiming to wrap themselves around my limbs. I knew that, given the chance, they'd suffocate or at least strangle me. I dodged the first plant tentacle, only to be ensnared by another that had wrapped itself around my ankle. It tugged sharply – I flew upward quickly, pulling it up from its roots. Cut off from the mother-plant, the vine withered almost immediately. Still hovering, I took a moment to think.

Clearly, doing this from the air wasn't going to work. My eyes found the giant Venus fly traps still snapping threateningly at me, though I was far out of their reach. Their stalks looked pretty thick though, and the area where they'd taken root was fairly clear of vines. _If I could decapitate them..._

The plan formed, I flew down, dodging stray vines as I went. The first one wasn't difficult to deal with. As soon as I landed, it went for my arm. I moved it out of the way just in time, and when the mouth closed, I grabbed the head and tore it off. Sure enough, the stem hardened, turning grey quickly. One down, about fifty more to go.

It actually took hardly any time at all to get to the top, using the dead stalks as a ladder. I was almost disappointed, but the same method worked on all of them. Within five minutes, the lot of them were dead and I was facing the cause of all this.

"Really, Ivy. Giant Venus fly traps? It's like you're not even trying," I smirked.

Unfortunately, my smirk was matched. "Oh I'm not, Wonder Woman. At least, not with them."

Suddenly the lily she was sat on split open, revealing stamen loading with darts, each one glistening with venom. I barely had time to raise my bracers in order to protect myself before a thousand of them were fired at me. I defended myself, knowing full-well this was probably a distraction, but until the darts stopped flying at me, I could concentrate on nothing else. Maybe I did need the League's help.

Sure enough, without warning, a vine curled around my thigh, yanking my off my feet . I cursed. _Damn it, why didn't I bring my sword with me? _

Suddenly the vine was severed just above where it was attached to me by a small, swiftly moving black object; a blade of some kind. It landed in the gloved hand of a man, whose presence had somehow gone unnoticed by either myself or Ivy. I didn't get time for a full assessment of his appearance, because another vine had wrapped around my wrist.

That, too, was cut cleanly in two.

Not wanting to give Ivy another chance, I advanced on her, still deflecting the poison darts. This man, whoever he was, I'd have to trust to watch my back – but I didn't question that he would. By the time I'd gotten closer to Ivy, I knew that he'd stopped more vines from getting to me. I'd need to thank him once Ivy was contained.

Which took about two minutes. I couldn't get too close, since at that close range I'd be unable to prevent the darts hitting my legs. Quickly, I sprung into the air and slammed my fist into her temple before more darts or vines could come my way. She crumpled, and almost immediately all the vines died. All that was needed now was to strip the deceased plants from the building.

Making sure Ivy was unconscious, I turned around to face my new ally, taking a second look at him.

He was tall, extremely well-built, and obviously very skilled in martial arts. The top part of his face was covered with a mask, black like the cape that enveloped him. The small blade was still in his hand, and now that I wasn't trying to dodge murderous vegetation, I could see what it was; a metal bat, matching the large symbol on his chest. I raised an eyebrow. Obviously I was familiar with costumed heroes, and heroes like Wildcat and Bwana Beast had animal connections, but this man wasn't quite like either of them.

"Not that I don't appreciate the help..." I began. "But who are you?"

"Batman," he answered gruffly.

I felt a jolt hearing his voice. It was low, dark, rough... thrilling. I swallowed, then frowned. I had no desire to think of another man as anything approaching attractive, and if I was honest, I never had before. There was no reason that had to change now.

I lifted my chin slightly. "Well thank you, Batman."

I turned and walked over to Ivy's prone figure, hefting her like a sack of potatoes. "Do you think you could –"

When I turned back, Batman was gone without a trace. I hadn't so much as heard one footstep, and looking into the sky I couldn't see him either. "Hera."

Deciding that I couldn't worry about it now, I jumped down from the roof and landed next to the police, handing Ivy over. Montoya nodded. "Thanks, Wonder Woman."

"It's what I'm here for," I told her. "Did the commissioner make it out okay?" _Did Bruce? _

"We'll all live," Jim's voice sounded from behind me.

I turned with a smile, used by now to not immediately looking at Bruce. "How are you, Jim?"

"Better now I'm not being threatened by genetically-altered flora," he said, shaking my hand.

The mayor came forward to shake my hand. I didn't like him, for reasons I couldn't name – there was no evidence that he was corrupt; or at least none that I'd found. I knew Bruce didn't trust him either, so I grasped his hand a little harder than was necessary. To his credit, he didn't wince. I let go and stepped away.

"We all owe you a lot."

I finally shook the D.A.'s hand. "Not a problem, Mr Wayne."

With a last nod to Montoya, I lifted into the air a few feet. "Excuse me, gentlemen."

In order to avoid being followed home, I shot up above the height of the skyscrapers so that no one could see which direction I turned. Hovering above the speckled lights of my city, I put a hand to my com-link. "Wonder Woman to Superman. Ivy's away."

"_Alright. Take care, Diana._"

"Goodnight, Clark."

"_Night._"

I severed the connection and headed for home, diving back down to the rooftops of Gotham, heading for a different spot from city hall. Once I was at roof-level, a prickle of unease began to nag at my senses. The hairs on the back of my neck all stood up. Not quite able to shake the unsettling feeling of being followed, I kept checking over my shoulder, but there was no one I could see. Remembering how suddenly Batman had turned up, I wondered if it might be him, but the idea of an apparently ordinary man being able to track me when I was on full-alert was ridiculous. Reminding myself to do a full search for Batman on the Watchtower database, I shook the feeling off.

I knew that I'd get home before Bruce was, since I didn't have to give a statement to the police or handle the press, but it didn't stop me pacing up and down the apartment until I'd almost worn a rut in the marble floor. I hadn't even bothered to change out of my uniform, though anyone could see me through the floor to ceiling windows. I hadn't turned the lights on, so it would be harder to see me, but not impossible.

When I finally heard his key in the lock, I grabbed the door and almost yanked it off its hinges. "Finally!"

His smirk was cheeky. I didn't appreciate it. "Miss me?"

I pulled him inside and looked him over. "Were you hurt?" I demanded. "The vines didn't actually attack you, did they?" I couldn't see any injuries on him, but that didn't mean I could rule out internal bleeding or organ damage, though if that were the case then he probably wouldn't have been able to walk unaided, let alone –

Bruce put his hands on my shoulders. "Diana," he said, "I'm fine."

I met his eyes, then nodded. "I know."

"But you're not." He gently touched my shoulder, and I realised with a little shock of pain that I'd been injured, even if he hadn't.

"Oh. I didn't notice."

He blacked the windows out and pulled me over to sit on the couch. "Wait here; I'll get the first aid kit," he said, heading into the bathroom.

Next to me on the end table, the phone rang, and I leaned over to pick it up. "Hello?"

"_Diana? It's Martha – I've just heard the news. Is Bruce alright? His cell phone was off, and–_"

Her voice was frantic with worry, and I hastened to reassure her. "He's fine, Martha, not a scratch on him."

There was a rush of static as she sighed in relief. Bruce came out of the bathroom with a small green box in his hands. "Who is it?"

"Your mother," I answered, holding out the phone. "She's worried about you."

He took the phone. "Hi, Mom. No, I'm fine. Yes, I'm sure."

Opening the box, I pulled out an antiseptic wipe and some gauze. The wound was on my shoulder blade, so I wasn't sure I'd be able to get to all of it, but tore open the wipe packet anyway. Going on sensation rather than sight, I aimed for the cut. And missed.

With his free hand, Bruce took it from me and did it. I knew it would hurt, but I still let a small 'ow!' escape. My husband smirked. "Don't be such a girl." His smirk vanished as he rolled his eyes. "No, Mom, I didn't hit her," he chuckled. He kept his voice light, though the smile left his face as he continued. "No, she tripped over her own feet."

I squeezed his hand. I knew he hated lying to his parents, and truth be told I did too. It just never seemed like the right time to tell him – besides which, as the wealthiest philanthropists in the city, they were a target anyway. Give them knowledge of my identity and they'd be in even more danger. I couldn't do that to two people who were as good as my parents in Man's World as well as Bruce's.

He seemed relieved when Martha changed the subject. "Sure. Yeah, tell Dad I'll see him tomorrow. Alright. Love you too." He laughed again. "Yes, Mom, I did thank Wonder Woman. Okay, sure. Bye." He held the phone out to me. "She wants to talk to you again."

I took it as he gently taped the square bandage over the cut on my shoulder. "_Diana?_"

"Yes?"

"_Thank you._"

I swallowed hard. "For what?"

Her voice was gently amused. "_You know what, honey. See you soon._"

There was click as she put the phone down. I put the handset back in the cradle and leaned back against Bruce with a sigh. "She knows."

He nodded. "I think they both do."

I bit my bottom lip. This whole secret identity thing was meant to stop the people I loved from being hurt, and now that seemed inevitable. Sooner or later…

As usual, Bruce knew when I was working myself up, so kissed my hair and stopped my worried thoughts. "No point in worrying about it now, Princess. Come to bed."

---

Superman was getting concerned. Whatever Bruce was seeing in Diana's mind, he didn't like it. His limbs kept twitching, and odd expressions kept contorting his face. And apparently it was putting a strain on J'onn, too, since droplets of sweat were rolling down his face.

Clark put a hand on the Martain's shoulder. "J'onn, break off the connection. You need to rest," he said, knowing that his friend would hear him.

A few moments later, the glow of J'onn's eyes faded, and he let go of Diana's hand and Bruce's. Then Superman's attention wasn't on J'onn anymore.

It was the first time Clark had ever seen Bruce shaken. Visibly _shaken_. He was pale, and… _trembling_?!

"Batman?" he asked in alarm.

"They're alive," was all he said. "In Diana's fantasy… my parents… they're alive."

The stunned silence in the aftermath of Bruce's statement was deafening.

---

**A/N: Review please!**


	8. Choice

**A/N: Once again, I bow to AQ. Thank you for the reviews! Here's the next chapter. It's short, I know, but I hope you will forgive me :)**

**Chapter Eight - Choice**

Ignoring the flabbergasted expressions of the others, Batman glared narrowly at J'onn. "You couldn't have warned me before I went in there?"

J'onn shook his head apologetically. "I didn't know. Diana's mind knows me only within the boundaries of the Justice League. I was not able to go any further into her fantasy. I gathered she had a secret identity and a civilian life, but no more than that."

Clark looked confused. "I don't understand. I thought you said Batman didn't exist in Diana's fantasy?"

"He doesn't," Bruce said bleakly. "The reason for Batman doesn't exist." Not wanting to stay and have this discussion with John, Shayera, and Flash around, he got up and left, heading for his quarters and knowing that Clark would follow.

"So now what?" Superman asked once the door was closed.

"We're married," Bruce replied simply. He didn't need to turn around to see his friend's mouth fall open. "Diana and I –" He shook his head slowly. "She must... want me to be happy… which makes no sense whatsoever."

"Why not?" Clark frowned.

Bruce turned to him incredulously. "Clark, for God's sake - her fantasy is _my _fantasy! That _thing _is supposed to make her live in her heart's desire, not mine!"

Superman couldn't say anything he didn't already know, so he only shrugged. "But that's Diana. She's given herself what she wants – you, happy."

"But she _shouldn't_ want that!"

Clark stopped. "So let me get this straight. Somehow, despite the fact that Diana's in there, cut off from everything, you've managed to make this about _you _feeling guilty? For God's sake, Bruce!" He took a step closer, poking Batman in the chest and forcing him back a step. "Are you in league with Circe?"

"What? No."

"Do you want Diana trapped in there?"

"Of course not!" he snapped.

"Then why should you feel guilty?!" Clark demanded. "Or is it just your default reaction? Christ, do you even know how to do anything _but _feel guilty?"

Bruce didn't say anything. The truth was yes, he did know things other than guilt, or grief. Or he had been learning to... but his teacher was lying in the Infirmary, cut off from him totally. He hadn't even known it was happening. The saying really was true – you didn't miss the water until it was gone, and Bruce was a man dying of thirst.

Clark sighed and unclenched his fists. "Don't start blaming yourself. You're not responsible for this."

_But I am for her being in love with me. I am for –_

Lost in his brooding, he didn't notice that Clark was about to prove once again he knew Bruce far better than Bruce was comfortable with. "That's not just it, is it?" he asked, peering into Bruce's face. "It's not just guilt."

Bruce was silent again for a few seconds. "No," he confessed quietly. "It's not."

"Then what is it?" his best friend asked.

"Relief," Bruce said frankly. "I... Not that she's in there, but that..."

"That you are too?" the Kryptonian asked.

"When I thought I wasn't," Bruce began, "when I thought she hated me… But to find out not only do I have a place in her fantasy, _I'm _what's different – damn it, that shouldn't make me _feel _better!"

Superman put a hand on Bruce's shoulder. He only shrugged it off and left the room, disgusted with himself.

When Diana had vanished, that horrible evening of revelation in the future, both he and John had faced a hellish night. John because he was forced to spend it looking at a man with Shayera's eyes, and Bruce because he was forced to spend it looking alternately at the space where his princess had been … and the accusing eyes of the old man. For a week afterward, his nightmares had been a choice. The old man, standing at the end of _the _alley and telling him he had to choose. Then Diana and his parents would appear.

And he'd only be able to save one of them.

The beloved mother and father who'd been snatched so prematurely, or the woman he –

After a week of that continual torture, he'd forced the dreams away. They'd gotten Diana back, safe, and sound, though minus her memory of what she had seen in that future. In shoving the dreams away, two things had helped: pushing Diana further from him, and carefully rebuilding the distance that had existed between him and everyone else, before the League; the second was remembering that his parents were dead. They were gone, permanently and forever, and nothing could bring them back. It was not a choice he would ever have to make.

Yet now here he was, having to make it anyway.

In however fake and fantastic a way, his parents were alive, some version of them still existed. Created by Diana, and kept _real _by and to her. He'd heard, through his listening device that still worked in Diana's mind, his mother's voice. Exactly as he remembered it, her laugh precise and clear. _How _Diana's imagination had been able to conjure her so perfectly, he had no idea. Maybe he owed that to the Mercy. He had no doubt that his father would be equally complete. It wasn't real — but it made them alive.

If he destroyed the thrice-damned plant, then the last vestige of Thomas and Martha Wayne would be gone. If he didn't, then Diana would be lost.

The beloved mother and father who'd been snatched from him so prematurely, or the woman he-

---

I couldn't sleep.

After my fiftieth turn and sigh, Bruce cracked open an eye. "Diana ... What's wrong? Are you worrying about my parents knowing who you are?"

"No," I said honestly. "But something strange happened while I was dealing with Ivy earlier."

He frowned. "What?"

"I had help. Which in itself is not unusual, not from a League member, but it wasn't – the man who helped me..."

"You didn't recognise him?"

"No. Said his name was 'Batman'. Obviously highly skilled in martial arts... he basically saved my life today. Still, there was something else about him that bothered me. I want to know who he is, and that's never happened before."

Before the Thanagarian invasion, I knew and respected the reasons my colleagues had regarding their secret identities; I was no different. Until we'd revealed ourselves, it had never bothered me. I'd felt some idle curiosity, but for some reason, knowing Batman's identity _mattered_ like it never had with anyone before him.

"Perhaps he's simply a Gotham citizen trying to help," Bruce suggested.

I shrugged. "Maybe, but why not just become a cop?" I asked rhetorically.

Hera knew there was a lack of decent police officers in this city. It was getting much better, and under Jim Gordon I had no doubt that within a decade or less, Gotham would be no more crime-ridden or corrupt — thanks to Bruce — than Metropolis was. That would most certainly be a satisfying day. Still, as arrogant as it might have been, I was doing well myself. I didn't think I needed help, especially not from a non-meta. "Becoming a superhero seems so… extreme. Something awful must have happened to him."

My husband frowned. "Where are you getting that from?"

Quite honestly I had no idea, but I knew it was the truth — and that unsettled me. "Because he must have trained his body for decades to achieve that level of expertise. Trust me, _no one_ gets that good without continual and constant work. Why would he be that dedicated without a damn good reason?"

"Well haven't _you _trained your — rather beautiful —" he added, with a slightly lecherous smirk, running his finger down the length of my torso, "— body for decades too?"

"Yes, but, Bruce, I'm an Amazon. I hardly think it likely that this Batman was raised on Themyscira."

The corner of his mouth tilted upward. "Perhaps not, but there were other ancient warrior societies weren't there? Is it so hard to conceive they might have survived too, or at least some part of them?"

"No other society – warrior or not – would have been immortal," I said firmly. "It's impossible."

"There are other ways of passing down training techniques, Princess," he pointed out.

I frowned. All his points were valid, but the idea of another ancient people existing somewhere rankled with me severely. We Amazons had been the most legendary warriors in the world even before the gods had granted us immortality. Our only rivals – or as close as any had ever come – had been the Myrmidons, and they had fallen with Troy. Hadn't they? Was it possible some remnant of them had survived? _Could _Batman be some kind of distant descendent of Achilles? No, that was impossible too. Brief as our encounter had been, I'd felt a kind of kinship with him, and if he did have Myrmidon blood in him, that would be unthinkable.

"Maybe," I grudgingly admitted. "It might not be... entirely insane a notion."

"But you don't believe it," he finished, eyebrow raised. He sighed, and then grinned – that rakish, dangerous grin that meant one of two things: either I was about to be seduced, or disgusted. Given that we were in our bed, and that I'd already married him, seduction seemed the best bet.

I was wrong on both counts.

Instead he rolled me over onto my back, and moved his hands to gently stroke my stomach. Then he met my eyes, his alight with mischief. "Let's see if we can loosen that Amazonian pride with a little tickling, shall we?"

"Bruce!"

Damn the man, he was the only person who could get me to squeal – and I loved him for it.

---

**A/N: Review please!**


	9. Logic

**A/N: Thank you for the reviews! And here's the next chapter - thank you to AQ, have a box of biccies (or cookies, whichever you'd prefer ;D)**

**Chapter Nine - Logic**

"Pssst!"

I looked up from my champagne flute to see Thomas's blue eyes winking at me. Bruce's eyes. "You look as bored as I feel," he noted.

I smiled. "Probably true. This... isn't really my thing."

"No," he sighed, "but then I keep thinking I'll get used to it."

"And you never have?"

He shook his head. "Nope. Mayor's balls like this, charity galas — pick a social function, any social function, and I get bored around this time."

I smiled. "And Martha?" I asked, indicating to where my mother-in-law was chatting to the mayor's wife. Bruce was on the other side of the room, looking like he'd rather not be having a heated discussion with a defence lawyer about a current trial of a mobster.

He tilted his head, regarding his wife with fond eyes. I hoped Bruce would still look at me like that once we'd been married forty years. "She normally lasts a little longer than I do, but I give her another ... fifteen minutes before she wants to leave."

I chuckled. "Bruce looks as though he'd already be gone if Harnett would let him take a breath."

"He can handle himself."

"I know," I smiled. "And there's a giant chessboard out there."

He frowned. "What?"

"Look," I said, pointing out of the window. "The mayor has one of those giant chessboards in the garden."

"So he does. I never did teach you how to play, did I?"

"No time like the present," I pointed out.

"No, I guess there isn't," he agreed. "Think they'll miss us if we sneak off?"

"Only one way to find out."

The huge chess pieces were hollow, and made from plastic thankfully, so my strength wasn't too obvious. If they'd been made of granite and I'd hefted them without effort, then we may have had a problem. Thomas was a good teacher; within moments I'd picked up the flow of the game, and knew what most of the pieces did. It didn't take long for us to finish, and I moved my queen into position in front of his king with a small flourish.

He looked quizzically at it. "How ...?"

I didn't want to tell him that I was blessed with the wisdom of Athena herself, so only grinned. "So I win?" I asked.

His gaze was puzzled as he gave the chessboard another once over. "... Yes."

A voice spoke from the dark, in the direction of the house. "Did I hear right?"

Thomas and I both looked up as Bruce and his mother came toward us. His face was both disappointed and absurdly delighted. "You _beat _my dad at chess? That's just not fair."

I raised an eyebrow. "Not fair?"

Martha chuckled. "He's been trying for years, and this is your first go at chess." She hugged me. "Well done, Diana."

I grinned. "Thanks."

"I'm still not convinced you didn't cheat," Thomas grumbled good-naturedly.

Ordinarily such a slur on my honour would have made my fists and temper rise quickly, but I knew his words were meant in jest, and took them as such. "I never took you as a sore loser, Thomas."

"Oh, honey, he's always been a sore loser. Where do you think Bruce gets it?" Martha grinned, winking at her husband and son.

"Hey!" they said in unison.

Enjoying the sense of female companionship, I giggled slightly, and then Thomas sighed. "Well, let me buy my conqueror a drink at least," he said, offering me his arm.

"Open bar, Dad," Bruce pointed out.

"Well then let's get out of here," his mother suggested. "I'm bored with socialising anyway. It's only ten thirty, after all. Let's… I don't know, go to a bar or something."

"A bar?" Bruce's tone was sceptical. "Mom, do you know how few bars there are in this city that _aren't _run by criminals?"

She took his hand. "Bruce, stop _working_ for once, for Heaven's sake."

Bruce and I glanced at each other before I looked away with a smirk. Asking either of us to stop working was the same as asking us to stop breathing. Still, I hoped tonight that my League communicator wouldn't go off. I didn't want to have to break the atmosphere by running off, and I didn't see how I could suddenly conjure a work emergency at ten thirty at night.

"Mom, I'm serious, if –"

"And _I'm _serious when I say you're still not too old for a spanking, young man, if you continue to insist I can't enjoy a nice drink with my family," she said sternly.

I tried and failed to contain my laughter at the idea, and found my father-in-law laughing alongside me.

Martha got her wish – her family left the party and found a nice – that is, criminal-free – bar in which to sit and share a few drinks.

As if it were the cherry on top of an almost perfect day, patrol that evening was slow; with all of the rogues inside, it was a simple matter of a few would-be robbers and a couple of drug dealers. Nothing I couldn't take care of easily. Still, I had the feeling there would have been more than the few who showed themselves – and I knew for certain this time.

I was being followed.

At three-seventeen a.m., I grew tired of the prickling at the back of my neck, and stopped on top of GCPD, next to the Wonder Woman signal.

It wasn't long before a dark figure detached itself from the sky and joined me. I addressed Batman. "Ah, you again."

There was a slight smirk in his tone if not on his face. "Me again."

"You've been following me," I stated.

"Yeah."

I folded my arms. "Why?"

"Thought you'd appreciate the help," he commented, mirroring my body language.

"When I need it, I'll ask for it," I replied. "I thanked you for Poison Ivy; the nightly patrols are my business."

He was definitely amused this time. "You sound like –" He cut himself off.

I frowned. "Like… who?"

"Never mind."

"Then we're clear about you not following me anymore?"

"Clear. You won't see me again."

"Only on patrols," I said. "If I need help with one of the big ones..."

"Only with the big ones," he agreed.

I couldn't shake the feeling of familiarity, or that he was laughing at me. Or not at _me_, precisely, but he was definitely finding something amusing. I glared for good measure. "I'm going home. _Don't_ follow me."

I took off, making sure to fly high before I started home. Whoever he was, I still didn't trust him. Why did he fight in the shadows like that, stay so hidden? It didn't sit well with me, and it was made worse by the fact that I knew he had a good reason for it, knew that the way he fought was carefully planned and rehearsed – but _how _I knew that, I had no idea.

When I got in, though, I smiled. Bruce had gone to bed by now, which I expected, since it was past three thirty, but he'd left the lamp on in the corner of our bedroom, as he always did. He said it was so that I didn't wake him up knocking things over, but then again he also knew how much the soft golden light cheered me, especially after a hard night.

Quickly changing out of my uniform and washing my face, I stared at Bruce from the doorway of the bathroom. He was still slumbering quietly, his face serene and calm. One arm was stretched out across my side of the bed, welcoming me in. I smiled, feeling the uneasiness left over from Batman drain away. Tomorrow he'd probably be dealing with the same criminals I'd handed to Commissioner Gordon tonight.

My husband stirred, peering at me through sleepy eyes. "... Princess?"

"I'm here." I slipped into bed beside him. His arms enclosed around me, pulling me close to his chest. Smiling, I snuggled under Bruce's chin and my eyes drifted shut. Sleep quickly followed.

---

"Did you learn anymore?" J'onn asked when Bruce opened his eyes.

"No," he said shortly, not feeling the need to go into the fact that it was ironically cruel that Diana seemed to have the same attitude to her Gotham as he did to his. If she needed help, fine, otherwise stay out.

They'd agreed that Diana needed to get used to Batman's presence in her fantasy before they attempted an extraction, so he'd found himself out-voted. He was to go in at least another three times, in order to gain her trust — _to gain her trust! _— before revealing the truth.

Without another word or glance at Diana, he left the med-bay and transported down to the Batcave. Once there, he sat at the computer, fingers poised above the keys, deep in thought.

When the Black Mercy had latched onto him, Bruce was unsurprised at what it had given him. Or rather, what it had taken from him. The deepest desire of his heart was not something he was willing to have dragged to the forefront of his mind. Bruce had never deceived himself about what he wanted. He'd denied himself plenty, but never lied to himself. He had known for decades he wanted his parents back more than anything else. He also knew that some people – like Clark – probably weren't aware that they were unhappy, probably had no idea how much they lied, to themselves and each other.

He didn't think Diana lied to herself either, didn't think she denied herself if it didn't interfere with the greater good.

Still, while she didn't lie to herself, she hadn't needed to deny herself what she wanted. Not when he was more than willing to do that for the both of them.

From now on, though, his heart's desire, should it ever be manifest, would no longer be him as a child, watching his dad beat Joe Chill to within an inch of his life. It would be what Diana wanted – the best of both worlds: Mom, Dad, and Diana. _His _Diana.

That was never going to happen, and he still had a choice to make. He knew what the others would say – well, apart from J'onn they probably wouldn't even understand why he was having doubts. Diana was locked in there, and if there was even the slightest chance of getting her out, there was no question. It wasn't that simple, and he couldn't explain. In the end, though, it wasn't up to them – he was the only one who could walk freely in Diana's mind, the only one who could persuade her to let go of her deepest, fondest wishes. Thankfully, if his heart refused to make the decision, then the comforting fallback would have to do.

Logic.

Could the League survive without Wonder Woman? Yes, if it had to. They'd be weakened, but there were other metas who could do a similar amount of damage. But 'similar' wasn't the same, and Superman couldn't be everywhere at once.

Was it likely she'd even believe him if he told her the truth? Yes, she would. Both he and Clark had known, when confronted with reality, that their perfect worlds were false. Diana would do the same, despite the amount of time she'd been trapped. She was the representation of truth, for Christ's sake.

How long would it take her to recover, once she was out of the Mercy's hold? Bearing in mind the amount of time she had been locked under its thrall, obviously longer than it had him or Clark, but only a day or two, physically. Psychologically it could take quite a bit longer – but he had faith in her ability to adapt quickly, and the real world tended to be more uncompromising about its existence than any fantasy. So a few weeks, potentially, but that was acceptable.

If he refused to tell her the truth, what would the League's reaction be? Most likely he'd be ostracised, and the Founders certainly would feel a great deal of anger toward him, if not attack him or enter Diana's mind themselves. Clark, perhaps, would understand, but he wouldn't be happy about it, and he definitely wouldn't accept it.

Assuming he left things as they were currently, and Diana found another way out, was there a chance she would turn against him? Yes, there was. When she came out at all, she'd be humiliated by the whole experience, and even angrier that he'd purposely kept her there. Leaving aside the emotional complications, Diana was one of his two closest allies; he could not afford to isolate her knowing there was a very good chance he'd need her in the future.

Should he be focusing on Circe for now, and think about Diana later? It was very likely that he would need someone with expertise in Greek mythology; the singing previously could very well have been a fluke, and he wasn't looking to get a spell reversed this time. He had no idea how to keep a goddess/sorceress prisoner. It made sense to make sure he had Diana with him.

Seated at the computer, Batman nodded to himself. That was it then. Emotion be damned – the reasons for getting Diana out were far more numerous than the ones to keep her in.

The police scanner built in to the computer squawked, and he got up, heading for the Batmobile. For now, Gotham called. Tomorrow, he'd go up to the Watchtower.

Tomorrow, he'd pull her out.

---

**A/N: Review please!**


	10. Reality

**A/N: Thank you to my reviewers, and as always, AQ. Enjoy!**

**Chapter Ten - Reality**

Bruce had just stepped out of the shower and was updating his logs when Alfred's footsteps came down the stairs. "Master Kent is here to see you, sir."

Bruce paused. "At five-forty-five in the morning?"

"Apparently, Master Bruce. He's in the kitchen, shall I bring him down?"

"Is there coffee in the kitchen?"

"Of course. I thought it best to offer some to our guest at such an ungodly hour," Alfred said dryly.

Bruce ran his hands roughly over his face. He doubted Clark had gotten much more sleep than he had – which wasn't a whole lot since Diana had gone missing, and hadn't increased at all since they'd found her. "I'm coming up."

"Very good, sir."

A few minutes later, when Bruce emerged into the kitchen, Clark was sitting with a steaming cup of coffee in his hand, but not drinking it. He looked tired. He looked drawn. He looked _small_.

Bruce wasn't in the mood for sympathy, and only took the cup of espresso that Alfred passed him without offering a greeting. "Why are you here, Clark?"

"I was on my way to work early. I have an article due and –"

"You live in Metropolis," Bruce cut him off. "Last time I checked, Gotham was a bit out of the way for your work, and you can type ten thousand words in three and half seconds, so don't waste my time with shit, Clark, I'm not in the mood."

Clark sighed. "Fine. I thought you might be... struggling with your decision."

"Sorry to disappoint."

"Bruce." Clark looked at him very directly. "Are you telling me that this is just a walk in the park?"

"I'm telling you to butt out."

Clark's coffee cup smashed in his hand. "Do you have to be so damned unhelpful all the time?" he ground out. "I don't pretend to know how you feel about Diana – if you see her the way I do, as the woman you love, but since it's you I'm going to assume that even _you _don't know. But I _do _know how you shut down whenever your parents are mentioned. They're alive, in Diana's head if nowhere else."

"They're not. My parents died thirty years ago in that alleyway, and whatever that _thing _has done with the idea of them –"

"If I might paraphrase," Clark interrupted softly. "Cut the shit."

"Fine," Bruce snapped. "Frankly, I'm not thinking about it. At all. Logic dictates we need Diana back. That's the end of it."

"Do you believe that? Is that really going to be the end of it?" Clark's voice was quiet, but the incredulity was obvious.

"Yes," Bruce ground out. "We get her out, burn the damn plant, go after Circe, and that's it. I'll be on the Watchtower at seventeen hundred hours. Make sure everyone else is too."

With that, Bruce left the room, having no real idea where in his palatial house he was going.

* * *

I woke that morning with a sense of dread, dread that I couldn't shake off all day, no matter what I did. I couldn't eat breakfast, and chugged a cup of coffee before going to work. The fact that we had our staff evaluations that day was not helpful; though I was focused in lectures, during my tutorials and seminars I wasn't in the slightest, and the sessions were led more by the students than by myself.

Something felt wrong, and I didn't know what, but my gut was screaming that something was going to happen.

When Bruce phoned at lunch to see if I wanted to go out to dinner that evening, I had never been so glad to hear from him. It was like oxygen had flowed back into the room; suddenly, I could breathe again.

"Hera, am I glad to hear your voice," I sighed, momentarily pulling my glasses off.

"What's wrong?" he asked immediately.

"I'm having a bad day," I answered, "and I have no idea why. I just feel like something's wrong. Like something's going to happen."

"Well when was the last something like this happened?"

I thought. The last time had been just before Lex Luthor had transformed into a Luthor/Brainiac hybrid – I had known then that something was about to happen, something bad. It was that same feeling now, I told Bruce.

He did what I knew he would – reassured me that everything would be fine. "You've got no evidence to suggest that's the case," he reminded me. "Gotham's safe, and the League's functioning well isn't it?"

I nodded. "Yes, as far as I know."

"There you go then."

"Yeah." I chuckled in self-deprecation. "You know what, it's probably PMT or something."

"You said that, not me," he replied quickly, a grin in his voice.

"Duly noted," I smiled. "Anyway, I better go. More classes this afternoon."

"Alright. Try not to worry so much, Diana. I love you."

The remaining tension in me evaporated. "I love you, too. Bye."

"Bye."

I closed my cell phone and set it down, smiling. _There_, I thought, _much better_.

* * *

"I'm unsure if this course of action is wise," J'onn said worriedly. "It could be that she will have no comprehension that something is wrong in her fantasy world."

Thankfully, Clark was all for Bruce's newly-unveiled plan of getting Diana out as soon as possible. "She will, J'onn. Trust me – as soon as you're confronted with anything real, it's impossible to continue believing in the illusion... no matter how much you want to," he finished quietly.

"Then I agree with Bats," Flash said. "If she's gonna believe you no matter what, then the sooner we get her out, the better."

"Maybe not, Flash," Superman cautioned. "I mean, we should get her out, but you need to be aware... it leaves a hole. We need to help her through that."

Shayera and John both nodded with Wally. The Thanagarian stood up. "Well enough talking – if we need to help her through it, we need to get her out of it first, right?" Without waiting for an answer, she looked across the table. "Bruce, Infirmary, now."

A few minutes later, they were gathered around Diana's bed, Bruce and J'onn sitting by her side. "Ready?"

Bruce nodded tightly. _Diana... forgive me. _She would believe him, true, but it was going to be hell nonetheless, letting go of a dream so cherished.

* * *

The tension that Bruce had eased during the afternoon returned full-force while I was on patrol that evening. This time, though, I didn't need to wait for Batman to catch up to me. After I'd finished dealing with a couple of would-be muggers, I turned to see him standing behind me, the unconscious form of a third crumpled at his feet.

"We need to talk."

I frowned. "What about?"

"You."

My frown got deeper. "Not here," I warned. Cathedral roof." I was not discussing anything where we could so easily be overheard.

I took off, not caring about how he'd get there, but sure enough he arrived via grappling hook a few seconds after me.

"Me, in what respect?" I asked immediately. "As protector of Gotham? I know it is often referred to as my city, but if you can stop the Joker's next plot, then there's no need to seek my permission, as I told you."

"That's not what I mean."

"Then what do you mean?" I asked.

He sighed impatiently. "Diana –"

In a flash, my hand was around his neck. "How do you know my name?" I demanded. "Who are you?"

He made no sound except for a few faint choking noises for a few moments, until I realised that he probably couldn't breathe. I relaxed my grip only slightly, once again searching his masked face for some feature I recognised. I _knew _him from somewhere, but I had no idea –

"I know your name," he whispered, "because everyone knows it."

"Who's _everyone_?!" I hissed, trying not to acknowledge the knot of fear building in my chest. My identity was a secret, there was no way I'd let anyone know unless it was completely vital, much less tell _everyone_. It would be suicide, a bloodbath. Tantamount to killing everyone I loved with my own two hands.

"Everyone... in the League," he said.

"That's not true," I replied instantly. "The Founders, _maybe_, but certainly not the rest of them, and you are _not _a member of the Justice League. Now _answer _my question." I removed my hand from his throat and stepped back, though I didn't relent with my suspicious stare.

He looked as though he were struggling to come up with the right way to say it. From the impatient sigh before he spoke, he didn't find one. "In the _real _Justice League, you don't have a secret identity. You're still Wonder Woman, but you've never hidden who you are. In the _real _world, you've never needed to."

I stared at him. The man was obviously unhinged. "... the _real _world? What in Tartarus does that mean?"

He gestured at our surroundings. I had no idea if he was referring to the roof, the buildings around us or the entire city. "_This_," he said, "is not real. In our world, there's a parasitic plant called the Black Mercy. It's telepathic, and has latched on to you."

"Black Mercy ..." I mouthed. Where had I heard that before? It tickled something, a half-formed image at the edges of my memory. When I pursued it, though, I found nothing. I'd never heard of a plant called that, and a _telepathic _plant at that? I wasn't buying it.

"You're insane," I told him flatly. "A _plant_? In case you haven't noticed, I deal with murderous flora every time Poison Ivy escapes from Arkham; I don't think I'd have any trouble with one more."

He kept pushing. "No? Think about it, Diana, you've heard the name before, you know you have."

I denied it flatly, despite what I'd felt just a moment ago. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"No? Then how about why sometimes you feel like the whole world is wrong? You have everything you want, but there's still something missing."

I opened my mouth, shaking my head. "Missing...? I don't – You're not –"

He took a step closer. "Think about your wedding, Diana."

My mind flashed back without thinking about it. Even through a memory the feeling of joy was overwhelming. "It was the happiest day of my life," I said, having no idea why I was feeling so defensive.

"Yes? Where did you get married?"

"The cathedral."

"Which one? There are six in Gotham alone," he pointed out swiftly.

"I don't see –"

"What was your dress like? Was it white or ivory? Did it have sleeves? Did you wear a veil?"

"What does that have to do –"

"What colour were the flowers in your bouquet?"

"Red," I blurted.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

My mouth turned down, because suddenly... I wasn't. _Hera, help me_. Why couldn't I look at Batman and tell him I knew exactly what my life was, exactly what it had always been? Why couldn't I tell him I had everything I wanted, that there was nothing wrong, that I could remember every detail of my wedding day?

I looked at Batman as though he had betrayed me somehow. "_None_ of this is real," he said softly.

I swallowed hard. "Let's just say… for two, _ridiculous_ seconds, that I believe you, that none of this is real –" I gulped again, "then what's different in 'the real world'? Am I still an Amazon?"

"Yes. And you're part of the Justice League, just as I am."

"Then what? There's something you're not telling me! If your world is exactly the same as this one –"

"It's not."

"Then _what_?" Suddenly my eyes widened. "Oh Hera. You mean Bruce," I whispered. "What – How – Does he exist?" I asked, tears welling up.

"He exists," he answered quickly.

"Then what? We're everything to each other, if –" My head went down. "If I've created this world that has everything I want …" I looked up again, clenching my jaw. "We're not together, are we?"

"No."

"Then he doesn't exist," I said immediately. "My Bruce…"

"Not the way you dream him," he answered, voice softening. He hesitated, then said the words in a rush, as if getting something painful over quickly. "His parents are dead."

My mouth dropped. "What? Thomas and Martha –?" _No…_

"Were murdered. He was eight years old; he saw it happen."

"But…_why_?"

"Wrong place and wrong time," he growled. "It's Gotham; you know the drill."

I closed my eyes, chanting softly; the ancient Greek rites for the dead. "And Bruce?" I whispered. "Not the DA, I take it?"

"No. Though…"

"Though, what?"

Suddenly I was so afraid, but my eyes hadn't stopped moving. Specifically over his cowled face, and his jaw line. That achingly-familiar jaw line. Realisation dawned slowly, and I shook my head. "No," I whispered. He said nothing to confirm or deny it, and I strode over to him, then yanked the cowl off with such force that it came away in my hand.

My husband's face looked back at me. His features were set, as if carved in stone.

"No. No, you can't be him." I knew the tears were coming, and I didn't bother to try to stop them. _No, no, no, no, no, no, no. _

My fist shot out in a visceral reaction; faster than my eye could track him, he'd caught my fist. I hadn't put all my strength into it, but it was still enough to make him take a step back. "You can't be him," I repeated stupidly.

His face softened. "Princess –"

"Don't – Don't _call _me that. You – You can't – Only _Bruce _calls me that, and you're not –" I cut off when I couldn't breathe anymore. He didn't move or say anything, and I walked away to the other side of the roof until I'd regained some control over my emotions. "How long?" I asked eventually, hearing how ragged my voice was. "How long have I been…?"

"A little over a month."

I spun back to him, outrage welling up. "A _month_? We've been married more than a year, how can –"

"You haven't. The Black Mercy has fabricated your memories."

He spoke like a robot. Totally emotionless, all business. Not anything like Bruce. I threw the cowl back at him. "So… everything? The first time we met, the first time we danced, our first kiss, our _wedding_? Don't tell me they were all lies," I snarled.

Nothing could make me believe that. I closed my eyes. When he told me he loved me: a perfectly ordinary day – over breakfast, just slipping out like they were the most effortless words in the world. The day he proposed – the picnic we took in the grounds of the manor, the rain that ruined it, except it didn't, and the raindrops falling on the diamond ring just made it more breathtaking. Then just a few days ago…the look in his eyes when he said he wanted to have children with me. _All _of them…they'd never happened? My heart cried the answer.

"No," I said quietly, answering my own question. I opened my eyes, looked very directly at the man who wasn't Bruce. "I refuse to believe that they were all lies." I stepped closer. "I'm going home. I don't want to see you in _my_ city again."

He didn't move or speak, and for the first time in my life, I took the coward's way out. I ran to the edge of the building and threw myself off it. Screw Gotham; tonight, I only wanted to see one person. It took me less than two minutes to get home, and I was sobbing again by the time I pushed open the door.

I looked around wildly, and there he was, sitting at the table with a laptop and briefs open in front of him. I felt my heart swell at the sight. He looked up at my entrance. "Princess? You've only been gone –" He cut off as he saw the tears on my cheeks. He was out of his seat and darting toward me in seconds. "Diana, what's wrong?"

I don't ever remember feeling so grateful in my life. This was _Bruce_, _my Bruce_; my husband, my lover, my confidant, my _everything_. I met him halfway, throwing myself into his arms. He was warm and solid and _there_, just as he always had been. "Diana?" he murmured after I'd spent at least ten minutes sobbing into his chest.

I looked up, finally, my grip on his biceps not weakening. Somehow he'd managed to move without me noticing, and we were on the couch. "Sorry," I whispered. "I… I just…" I took his face between my hands, scanning his gaze. He was _real_. There was no way he could not be real. "How can you not…?" Surging forward, I wrapped my arms around his neck. "You're real, of course you're real!"

He patted my back. "Real… and… choking…"

I let go with a very watery laugh. "Sorry. Bruce… tell me you love me," I said suddenly. "I – I need to hear it."

He blinked. "I love you, of course I do. Diana…" He smiled gently. "Do you even need to ask, Princess?"

There could be no mistaking the sincerity in his voice, and I almost melted in relief. "I love you, too."

Slowly, the tears dried up and the trembling ceased while he stroked my hair softly. "What brought this on?" he asked.

I didn't know where to begin. And how could I tell him anyway? 'None of this is real'? 'Someone who looks exactly like you told me that your parents are dead'? I shook my head. No, there was no way in Tartarus I could tell him that. Imagining Thomas and Martha dead myself was hard enough, but for Bruce it would be devastating just considering it.

I wiped the vestiges of my tears away. "It's nothing, I just... I had a really bad patrol."

He looked at me very directly. "Diana."

I sighed. "Don't freak out, but... you know I told you about Batman? Well... I saw him tonight. And we ended up –"

Suddenly he got up and paced to the window. From the reflection in the window, his expression was thunderous. "Bruce?" I frowned.

"I see," he said quietly. "Well... at least you told me up front." His voice sounded so bitter. I didn't understand. "If we'd had months of you sneaking out-"

Suddenly it clicked in my head what he meant, and my instinctive reaction was to laugh. "Oh Bruce." I sobered, then got up and took his face between my hands. "I'd never do that to you."

He frowned. "Then what –?"

"I was going to say we ended up fighting if you'd give me a chance to finish the sentence," I said gently. "I love _you_. Never, ever doubt that."

"Well when you started talking about not freaking out and Batman... I guess I got a little paranoid," he admitted. I hadn't thought Bruce could ever look sheepish, but he did.

I laughed softly. "Maybe not the best choice of words."

"No," he agreed. Then he frowned again. "Hang on, if you're not cheating on me, then why would I freak out?"

It was my turn to frown now. "Because... he's you," I finished lamely.

He blinked. "What do you mean 'he's me'?"

"I mean... he literally is _you_, Bruce. Not – not _you_, but I – I know you don't have a twin brother, but it's the only thing that makes sense."

"Well what did he say that upset you so much?" he asked, lifting my face up.

"That... that you weren't real. That none of this is real." The sobs were building up again, and I forced them down. "He said... he said that I've built this world because it answers my heart's desire, but that it's not real."

"Your heart's desire?" he asked.

"You," I said simply.

That made him smile, and he kissed my lips softly. "Diana, there is no possible world where you wouldn't have me. I love you. I'd love you anywhere."

His words clicked into place. Of course, how had I not seen it before?! The League had come across parallel worlds before, the experience with the Justice Lords had even proven that some were out to destroy us. Batman might be Bruce – but not in this world, and whatever world he came from, it was obviously a ruse to get me away from my world.

"How could I have missed that?" I muttered. A wide grin split my face as I looked back up at my husband. "Bruce, you're a genius."

He raised an eyebrow. "I am?"

I nodded. "Totally." Relief filled me, suffusing into my very bones. It felt as though the burden of Atlas had been lifted from my shoulders. I collapsed against Bruce with a sigh. "Hera, I love you."

He laughed, ran his fingers through my hair. "I love you too. I have no idea how I helped, though."

I took his hand and tugged him back to the couch. "Even if Batman _is _you, then he must be you from another world."

"Like the Justice Lords?" he asked.

I'd told Bruce about every mission I'd ever been on, and I nodded. "Yes, and just like the Justice Lords, Batman must have... I don't know, been trying to trick me into their world."

His arms tightened around me slightly. "And you didn't think of that?"

I shook my head. "I just... panicked, I guess. At the idea of losing you."

He kissed me again. "Never."

I closed my eyes and leaned into the kiss. Yes, it explained everything.

_This is a good life,_ I thought as both my hands and Bruce's began to wander.

_I refuse to let go of it._

* * *

"Well?" Clark barked as soon as Bruce woke up.

"I told her," he said, still in shock. "She refused to believe it."

"She refused to believe it?" Shayera asked, eyebrows raised.

Bruce nodded. "Yes. She's not waking up from this alone."

The four of them looked at Diana's prone form. As they watched, the pained expression on her face smoothed out, back to the glassy smile of before. As if to mock them, the Black Mercy waved its tentacles almost triumphantly.

Bruce clenched his fists and silently swore again that he was going to take Circe apart for causing all of this. It was easier to deal with it than focus on Diana's refusal to come out.

"Then we have no choice," J'onn said heavily. "We must remove the Black Mercy by force."

Clark nodded. "Okay... how?"

J'onn answer was simple. "Pull."

Clark blinked. "Just... pull?"

J'onn nodded. "The time for more sophisticated measures has passed, my friend. The only thing left is brute force."

"It worked before," Bruce added. "Just don't get caught in it yourself."

Superman nodded, then grasped the edges of the plant. As if in anticipation of what was happening, the Mercy dug its tentacles in harder. So hard Bruce saw thing trills of blood begin to weep down Diana's skin. "Hurry."

Clark took a deep breath, and pulled.

Faced with Kryptonian strength, the Black Mercy had no chance of hanging onto Diana, and was forced to let go, its tentacles ripping chucks of flesh from her body. The princess's agony-filled scream filled the room, but for now, at least, she couldn't be the priority.

They were prepared for what the plant would do; when it targeted Clark, J'onn wrestled it from him – half a second before it hit, he went non-corporeal, and it sailed through his translucent form to land on the floor. Bruce slammed the reinforced-steel box down on top of it, and Clark soldered the box shut, both of them breathing hard.

Then Wally's voice interrupted. "Oh no."

They both spun around, expecting to see Diana's eyes open, breathing hard, sobbing even – but she wasn't doing any of those things. She was still unconscious.

"What the hell's wrong with her?" Bruce demanded.

J'onn's answer was not reassuring as he rushed to check the monitoring equipment. "I have no idea."

* * *

**A/N: Review please!**


	11. Persephone

**A/N: Thank you for the reviews! I'm really glad people liked it, and here's the next chappy.**

**Chapter Eleven - Perspephone**

When it became apparent that no matter what stimulus Diana received, she wasn't waking up, Bruce's subsequent solution was uncomplicated. Go after Circe.

They'd tried everything, short of a defibrillator, to snap Diana out of her coma. Her heart was beating strongly, and she wasn't brain-dead. Her higher brain functions were all there, it seemed, but no one could understand why she hadn't regained consciousness. J'onn's efforts to enter her mind were rebuffed, and none of the six world-class neurologists they brought up to the Watchtower could make anything of the MRI results or CT scans. Under the Mercy, her brain patterns had read as though she had been dreaming, but now there was no sign she was seeing anything. As far as the opinion of ever single expert they could find went, there was absolutely no reason Diana wasn't awake and smiling at her friends right now.

For Batman, that left only one conclusion: magic.

Circe.

* * *

The complete lack of sound alerted Zatanna to the fact he was there. In fact, she knew even before she rose to consciousness. At five a.m. – after three weeks of tours and then a ten hour mission with Vixen for the League – she turned over in bed, and buried her face in her pillow, muttering, "Go 'way, Batman..."

Bruce waited.

Zatanna finally sat up, rubbing her eyes. "God, Bruce, can't you come back when we're facing the sun?"

The room was completely silent, and dark. It was darkest in the far corner, and that was also the corner that seemed to be leeching even the ambient sounds of the Watchtower.

She looked toward it. "Right. Bats are nocturnal," she groaned.

Her top hat landed in her lap. "Get up. We're going to Themyscira."

She stumbled out of bed and to the shower naked; it wasn't anything he hadn't seen before, and if they were going to Themyscira, then this was about Diana, which meant the fact that she was a woman didn't even register with him. Hell, sometimes _she_ didn't feel like a woman next to the Amazon, but with Bruce it wasn't about her cup-size or her legs – the guy was in love with the princess, had been for years. So, if whatever Zatanna was around to do could help him realise that, then she'd get up at five a.m. gladly.

She could always tease him about it later, once he'd seen the light.

He had a cup of coffee already steaming for her in the Batwing; a gesture she appreciated since he'd denied her breakfast. "So... why're we going to Themyscira? Haven't you already told Hippolyta about Diana?"

There was a silence that was a definite 'no'.

"Okay... but that's not why we're going, is it?" If it was, she imagined that Bruce simply would have sent Shayera to explain things to the Queen of the Amazons.

"No. We're going to Tartarus."

Zatanna blinked. "As in the fiery pits of hell, Tartarus?"

"Yes."

"Because...?"

"Because Circe was released by someone down there. I want to know who – if they have the power to release her, they have the power to drag her back," he growled.

"What, you can't just sing for her again?"

She felt the Batglare even through the seat in front of her. His voice was like a whip. "When I find her, she's bringing Diana back, and then she's going back to hell."

"So why are you bringing me? Last time I checked, Hades was a god, male. You don't need ovaries to talk to him."

"No, but with the potentially murderous Amazons I might," Bruce said.

Zatanna paused. "Good point," she admitted.

"Opening the door to Tartarus would also mean every demon could get out while we were going in," Batman pointed out. "And we're going to need more sympathetic help than Hades."

"So who'd you have in mind? Hippolyta?"

"No. She's Queen of Themyscira, but we need more power than that. We need the help of a goddess."

Zatanna raised an eyebrow. "Any idea which one? From what I know of Diana's goddesses, none of them are going to be very happy with a man in their temple."

"That's why you're here."

"Great, so I'm a scout. That's comforting."

Ahead of them, the dark land mass of Themyscira rose from the horizon. "I have detailed schematics of the island," he told her. "The temple we're going to is on the other side of the island from the rest of the dwellings and palace."

"Oh." Feeling slightly better, the magician stretched slightly. "So which goddess?"

Bruce flew over the majority of the island, and then finally set the almost silent jet down on a spit of sand that served as the only beach on this side of the island. "You know, I could have just transported us here," she pointed out cheerfully.

"I wanted to fly," he said shortly, before his tone softened. "Helps with..."

Her eyes widened, but he said nothing else, and she didn't push him. Still, her eyes were on him as he led the way through a small patch of forest. _Helps with what, Bruce? What are you hoping Circe will to do? _Though Circe's reaction to his song has been genuine, she was under no illusions that the sorceress was anything but a vicious bitch. If all she had done was to throw the Black Mercy onto Diana, how could she do anything else?

Zatanna had gone to see Diana in the Infirmary, as had most of the League. Among the Founders, she was second to Superman in terms of popularity, and J'onn had had to implement a four-people-at-a-time visiting policy for her bedside. Zatanna had gone twice – once with Inza, Dr Fate's wife, and once alone. When alone she'd shed a tear or two – it was horrible, seeing her so... helpless. All of the women in the League hated the damsel-in-distress thing happening to them, so it was always comforting to know that if it did happen, then Wonder Woman was around to come rescue you rather than leaving it to Superman or the other men.

Without her... it was like they'd all lost their guiding compass. Even Shayera looked lost at times, though only when she thought no one else was looking. The whole League was still pulling together, still leaning one one another to fill the gap. All but one, that is – the man who was currently walking in front of her.

_Don't you know why you're surprised, Zee_, she thought. Being alone was what Bruce did best. Sometimes she thought that being in love with Diana might be what he did best, if only he'd let himself. Being loved by her... well, he'd been excellent at that for years.

Pushing aside her rather depressing thoughts of Bruce and Diana's non-relationship, she realised Batman hadn't actually answered her question. She stopped. "Bruce, _where _are we going?"

"To the temple of Persephone," he said over his shoulder.

"Oh."

As they walked, Zatanna went through everything she knew about Persephone. It was nowhere near the amount of detail Diana would know, but she knew enough, she hoped, to get by.

Daughter of Zeus and Demeter, abducted by Hades whilst picking flowers, then taken to the Underworld to be his queen. Her mother, wracked with grief and anger, had stopped all life and growth on Earth, plunging the entire planet into perpetual winter. Eventually, Zeus had intervened and forced Hades to return Persephone to Earth, but too late – Persephone had already partaken of food in the Underworld, and was therefore bound to it forever. Since she was a goddess, and no mere mortal, she was allowed to leave for three-quarters of the year. It was Persephone's yearly departures into the Underworld which caused the seasons, for while she was gone, Demeter would allow no growth on Earth.

Apart from that, Zatanna had no idea what to expect. She knew enough about Greek gods in general to know that they were compassionless tricksters who enjoyed meddling in the hearts of mortals. There was no reason Persephone should be any different.

"We're here."

Batman's rough growl drew her from her reverie, and she looked up to see a relatively small temple looming from the trees. It was situated in a clearing, and while not overgrown, looked almost purposefully derelict. It looked... sorrowful, though still well maintained. The grand columns that flanked the entrance were ingrained with gold leaf, though it was fading and peeling away. What was in no danger of dying, however, were the riotous flowers splashed all across the clearing.

Bruce held up a hand. "Wait," he murmured.

Taking out a gas grenade, he pressed the activation button and threw it into the temple, through the huge open entrance. After a few seconds, they both inched through into the cool interior. Sure enough, there were two unconscious Amazon guards, both collapsed onto the floor and slumbering apparently peacefully. Zatanna couldn't argue with his logic. No matter that she was a woman and he was a hero of Themyscira, this way there would be no red tape to cut through – and all civilisations, no matter how old, had a bureaucracy.

Inside, the theme of decaying grandeur continued. Only the huge, dominating statue of the goddess herself remained untarnished by the relentless march of time. They were now alone in the building.

"Now what?" she asked, keeping her voice down as if the echoes of her own whisper would come back as ghosts.

Batman stalked forward to the altar, taking something out of his belt – a pomegranate, of all things. He put it down on the altar, then took out a batarang, slicing into the fruit with the pointy end of it. Extracting three seeds, he scattered them next to the rest of the fruit. That done, he stepped back and waited.

Nothing happened. No earthquakes, no sudden darkening of the gloom, and no illuminating of it either. Nothing. Zatanna blinked in confusion.

Until a somewhat amused female voice spoke from behind them. "You are bold, mortal, to provoke me so."

They both turned to see a dark-haired woman in a grey robe, her attention fixed on Bruce. They both stared – if nothing else, her appearance proved that Hades loved his queen; he had fashioned his daughter in her image.

_Ouch, _Zatanna found herself thinking on Hippolyta's behalf. That had to sting - even the image of your own daughter reminding you that you were 'the other woman'. Was this why Persephone's temple was so neglected, without only two guards? Because Hippolyta was still a little... resentful?

Persephone's eyes were a cold grey, though, not the deep, warm blue of Diana's. _Holy shit,_ Zatanna thought,_ this is so creepy._

Bruce's reply was even. "I wanted to be sure of a response."

"Then what do you want of me?"

"I come on behalf of Diana of Themyscira."

Zatanna really had no idea why she was here, but for now she was quite intrigued to listen to Bruce bargain for the goddesses help. She didn't think he was going to have much of a problem; at the mention of Diana's name, a troubled expression had crossed Persephone's face.

"I am a patron and protector of the princess, just as Hera, Athena, and others are. Is she well?"

"No, frankly. She is alive, but exists in a deep state of catatonia, and it is by Circe's doing."

The goddess's hands clenched into fists. "Circe? That witch? How dare she interfere with Diana again?" She muttered more under her breath, something along with lines of cursing Circe into eternity would be Zatanna's best guess, but when she looked back at Batman, her anger was contained, though still redolent. "That fool husband of mine released her when he should not have done, into a world where she could cause such damage. She looked down at he ground beneath her feet. "I will have words with him..."

"Can you do anything to help Diana?" Bruce pressed. "Make Circe help her."

"What did she do?"

Batman gave Persephone the briefest possible version of the events that had led to Diana's current condition, and waited for the goddess to say something, anything. Her fists had remained clenched, and now her voice trembled with the force of her rage. "I will deal with Circe," she growled.

Then her expression softened, and Zatanna felt her heart sink. "You can't do anything to help Diana," she said softly.

"I do not think so, little sister," the goddess said, looking at the woman for the first time since arriving. "I will try, but I can promise you nothing. If it is beyond my power to wake her, then I will appeal to my father's wife, and implore with her to help Diana. You have my word."

It would have to be enough, but Zatanna could see Bruce's shoulders slump. "Very well. Will you go after Circe now?"

Persephone's grey eyes went steel-cold. "Yes."

With that, she was gone as swiftly as she had come.

Zatanna had only one question to the man who was still staring at the space where the goddess had been as though all his hopes had just vanished. "Bruce?"

"What?"

"Why am I here?"

"We're on Themyscira; thought I might need a woman."

"Oh."

---

**A/N: Review please! **


	12. Worry

**A/N: Thank you for the reviews! **

**Chapter Twelve - Worry**

"Lois?"

"Mmmm?" she responded absently, not looking up from her proof-reading.

"Wouldyouliketohavedinnerwithme?"

She frowned, then focused lilac eyes onto the man in front of her. Who, incidentally, was going an interesting shade of red. "What?"

"Would you...y'know, if you want to, I mean, if you don't then –"

"Smallville."

It was only a little slower than the first time. "Wanna have dinner with me?"

Lois felt her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline. Was he actually doing it? After more than five years sitting opposite her, and more than five years saving her life at least three times a week, he was _actually _asking her out? Apparently her shock made her pause too long, since the blush crept up around Clark's ears too, and he got up.

"Well, I mean, I understand if you wouldn't want to –"

"No," she interrupted. "I'd love to!"

Oh God, was that _her_ enthusiastic voice? She was Lois Lane, cynical and world-weary reporter. She didn't sound excited because _Clark Kent _had asked her out. She winced, but from the delighted smile that was spreading across Clark's face, he didn't care. Oh God, there were the dimples. She was such a sucker for those dimples, even if she didn't want to be.

"Really?" he grinned.

She cleared her throat, attempted to claw back some of her dignity. "Uh, yeah, I mean, sounds good," she said, going for nonchalant. Why was her voice so high? What was she all of a sudden, a school girl?

Clark was still beaming, but then suddenly seemed to realise he was still standing up. Now that she'd accepted his dinner invitation, there was no reason for him to escape the room. She got the impression he was thinking very fast, and was still unable to think of a reasonable excuse.

Lois decided to help him out. "I'll have a latte if you're getting coffee."

"Coffee, right, coffee, that's– that's what I was going to get. Coffee, yeah..."

As she watched him head toward the elevator, Lois stifled two things. Firstly, the urge to giggle, and then the urge to dance. He'd asked her out, he'd finally done it! Now how to react when he told her he was Superman... Shocked? Delighted? Or should she just be honest and go with a traditional, 'no shit, Sherlock'?

"No, I can't do that," she muttered.

He'd look too crestfallen if she did, and she didn't have the heart to do that. Besides, the sooner she was told who he was, the sooner she could tell him she loved him without bizarrely cheating on either alter-ego. Still, she wondered just what had made him decide to ask her now. This was progress that Diana deserved to be informed off, she felt.

While Clark was still at Starbucks, she whipped out her cellphone and dialled the princess's number. It went straight to voicemail. Puzzled, she frowned. Diana never had it off. It was always on, in case her com-link malfunctioned and there was a League emergency. Was there something wrong? Come to think of it, she hadn't seen Wonder Woman in action in a while. Weeks, in fact. Her frown deepened. Maybe when Clark got back she'd–

No, she wouldn't. She was a step closer to being able to ask him those kind of questions, but right now she couldn't. Still, if something was wrong with Diana, was it worth revealing what she knew to Clark? Even if she didn't, there had to be someone else she knew in the League–

"Bruce!" she realised quietly.

Even if Batman was only a 'part-time' member of the League, he'd know if something had happened concerning Diana. Typing out a text message, she looked at it critically. _Hey, Di's not answering her cell – did her phone die? Lol, everything OK? L. _Well it didn't give anything anyway, and there were loads of Dianas in the world. It just looked like a normal text message to a friend. She pressed send.

"One latte!"

She looked up with a smile. "Thanks, Clark."

He beamed back happily. "No problem."

Pushing aside her lingering worry about Diana, she sipped at her drink. "So, when would you like to go for our date?"

Oh God, had she really just called it a date? She gave an inward sigh at the way Clark's face lit up, and the corresponding flutter of her heart. She was sunk.

* * *

Leaning her head on her hand, Circe sighed. This just wasn't fun anymore. When it had been Odysseus and his crew... that had been fun. Admittedly, so had been turning Diana into a pig, but Amazons and kings were one thing. Now, it was just ordinary people, and they were so frightfully _dull_.

She'd traveled all over the world looking for entertainment; she'd sung, and now she was looking for something new to do. She settled on Gotham City. It would be most annoying to the Batman, after all, if she released a few wild cats – formerly a mix of criminals and cops – in the city. She did so, and then found a nice rooftop to watch the chaos unfold.

When a teenage boy landed silently on the rooftop behind her, Circe was well-aware of his presence. She'd set up a magical sensor web, after all. She smirked as the boy prepared to leap at her, and then sent a net of magic his way. Robin's jump was arrested midair, and she turned around, chuckling.

"Naughty, naughty, little bird..."

Robin struggled futilely, but her magic held him silent. Circe pursed her lips. "Hmm, now that gives me an idea..."

Grinning evilly, she stalked toward him, wondering how much fun she could have watching a little red-breast struggle against all those dangerous beasts of hers down there. She raised her hand in the boy's direction–

Nothing happened. Suddenly, she realised she couldn't move. There was only one kind of being with the power to stop _her _in her tracks. Now which one was it?

"Circe, release him!"

Fuming inwardly, she did so, and Robin dropped to the rooftop. After picking himself up, he looked wide-eyed at his rescuer. "Di-Diana?"

Ah. The princess was strong, but certainly not strong enough to contain her. That left only one possible goddess.

_Oh lovely, _she thought sourly, _the warden's wife._

"No," a cool female voice answered him. "Though am here on her behalf."

Suddenly Circe was flung to the ground. She winced inwardly. This was not going to be pretty.

Fingers rooted firmly in Circe's hair, Persephone looked toward the boy still staring at her in wonder. "Tell your mentor that Circe will be punished, rest assured."

He nodded numbly, and then goddess and sorceress were gone. The heat as they entered Tartarus hit Circe like a very familiar and unwelcome wall, along with the _smell. _

Still dragging her by her hair, Persephone marched forward and shoved open the doors to Hades' throne room. The god was on his feet as his queen came toward him. "My dear," he greeted, sounding surprised. "Not that I am not delighted to see you, but winter is still weeks away." He sneered just a little bit. "Surely your mother protested you coming down here early."

Persephone ignored the comment about her mother. "Indeed, and though I wish I were here for the pleasure of your company, husband, I am not," Persephone said harshly. From behind her, the queen of the Underworld dumped the still-unmoving Circe at Hades' feet. "The next time you wish to _parole _your prisoners, at least be sure they can be trusted not to cause grave harm to the inhabitants of the world!"

Circe suddenly found a boot pressing her into the floor. "And Circe cannot be so trusted?" he asked, his voice deceptively pleasant. If she could, Circe would have shivered. She knew that tone. Though she'd never admit it out loud to anyone, it still featured in her nightmares.

"Twice now she has attempted to destroy Diana, and twice you have failed to punish her for it! Now Diana lies in catatonia, and she may never recover!"

Hades loomed over Circe, black eyes fathomless with fury. "Is this true?" he asked softly. Circe still could not answer. Still, that didn't seem to matter. Persephone responded for her.

"Indeed so. Since you ordered her to remain away from Hippolyta when you released her, Circe decided to go after a surrogate – and who better than Hippolyta's only child? Apparently, Circe still misses Odysseus and his men, because she turned Diana into a pig, and only restored her after Diana's chosen forsook his dignity. Perhaps it was a little childish," the goddess admitted, "but still, Diana was only moments away from coming into my care when Circe returned her to her normal state."

The boot pressed a little harder, and Circe's cry of pain was a silent one. The queen of the Underworld continued her narrative, unmoved by the sorceress' silent agony. "And now, Circe's latest attempt to harm Diana has caused her great harm. A malicious plant from beyond the bounds of Earth was thrown onto Diana, one which invaded her mind and trapped her in an imaginary world, one which would be Diana's greatest desire. She was hidden from her comrades for nearly a month, and all of their attempts to safely remove the blasted plant failed, because Diana can no longer bring herself to accept reality. They were forced to rip the plant from her body, with no way of protecting her mind from further trauma."

Hades' boot was now pressing even harder against her chest. Circe could both hear and feel her ribs cracking. She whimpered silently. "You harmed _my_ child?" he growled at her.

Persephone continued to speak. "I go to my step-daughter, to help her. Husband..." her voice gentled to a low purr, "I leave Circe to your… tender mercies."

Even before Persephone transported away from the Underworld, Circe's screams were echoing through Tartarus. The goddess emerged in the clean, grey room of the Watchtower infirmary with a vicious smile still on her face.

It faded quickly when her grey eyes alighted on a face almost identical to her own. _Oh, Diana._

The room's only other occupant heard her thought, and turned to regard her without surprise. "Have no fear, Martian," she said without taking her gaze from Diana. "I am here to help, if I can."

"I do not know how much anyone can do at this point," J'onn replied. "I have been unable to reach her."

"You do not have the power to," she said, offhandedly. Moving forward, she slowly sat down on the edge of Diana's bed, and put a hand over the princess's forehead, closing her eyes.

It was several minutes before she felt anything, and had been beginning to believe the telepath was right – it was as though Diana's body now existed as an empty shell; her soul already gone. However, she slowly began to feel hints of something; yet every time she tried to take hold of it, it slipped from her grasp, twisting away.

_Diana! Diana, hold! _

There was no answer but the ghost of movement, once more fleeing from her questing presence.

When Persephone pulled away from Diana, it was with a frown on her face. "She is there," she confirmed. "Yet... it is odd – as though she is not listening. As though she does not _wish _to listen."

"Even to a patron goddess?"

She nodded. "It seems so. It would seem my authority is no longer enough to compel her. She needs more in this world than reality offers."

J'onn sighed and nodded solemnly. "I feared it could be that, but what she wants..."

Persephone stood. "What she wants is not available to her. If my authority is not enough, I will appeal to Hera. As Queen of Olympus, her influence over Diana is stronger than mine."

She extended a hand, and put it on his shoulder. "Do not hold out too much hope, though," she added quietly. "Diana is dear to me, far more than just as one of my favored, and she has always known that, even if her mother did not. If she will not heed someone she knows loves her dearly, I do not know if even Hera can command her obedience."

Persephone sighed and vanished from the Watchtower, to make her way to Olympus. She thought of the knight, he who had been Diana's beloved before this entire mess had occurred.

_Forgive me, youngling,_ she thought. _I did what I could, provided her what comfort I could when she was trapped. Perhaps I was wrong to do so. Perhaps I only made things worse._

* * *

Lois bit her lip for the hundredth time in ten minutes, and then made her decision. Bruce hadn't replied to yesterday's text, not even with a curt 'busy', so there had to be something wrong. So that only left her with one option.

She got up. "Back in a minute."

Without waiting to hear Clark's reply, she got in the elevator and took it all the way up to the roof. Once out underneath the huge globe, she took a deep breath. There was no point in yelling; he wasn't far away after all.

"Superman? It's Lois – I really need to talk to you... wherever you are..."

God, it sounded even cornier than it usually did!

No more than five seconds later, she heard the telltale _whoosh_, and the Man of Steel was floating in midair by the edge of the roof, a worried look on his face. "Lois? What's wrong?"

"I can't get hold of Diana," she said. "I'm probably being paranoid, but, well something tells me I'm not."

He crossed his arms. "Well...no, you're not."

"I knew it – what's happened? Is she alright?"

"No, she's not. She's... in a coma. Nothing we can do will wake her up."

"What happened to her?"

He looked a little hesitant, and she threw her hands up. "Superman, I'm not asking as a reporter, I'm asking as her friend."

He nodded. "Something... infected her."

"Like a virus? How strong would a virus have to be to take down _Wonder Woman_?" Lois demanded incredulously.

"It wasn't a virus. More a parasite. We got it off her, but she hasn't woken up yet. Nothing is working." He sighed and drifted closer to sit down on the ledge. "We've even got one of her _gods _involved, and she couldn't do anything either."

Her eyebrow quirked. "You mean 'great Hera' actually _exists_?"

He nodded. "She does, but it wasn't her. Persephone, the goddess of the Underworld, came to the Watchtower yesterday, tried to bring Diana out of it, and failed. She said... it's like Diana doesn't _want _to come back to the world. Like she doesn't want to come back to us."

His sadness was palpable, and with her own heart swelling with grief, Lois reached out, and held him. "It'll be all right," she murmured quietly. "Diana will get through this. Just give her time."

Even as she said the words, though, Lois wondered at the truth of them. _Don't make a liar out of me, Diana,_ she thought, closing her eyes.

* * *

**A/N: Review please! **


	13. Advice

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews! **

**Chapter Thirteen - Advice**

The soft sound of the ocean waves, the cacophony of birdsong, and the pale pink light splashing across the ceiling of her bedchamber were the things that Hippolyta had awoken to for more than three millennia. Not today, however. Today, she awoke before the dawn, to a grey ceiling, a navy blue sky and the awareness that someone else was in the room. She sat up sharply, eyes focusing on the woman standing some feet away.

"Diana –"

As her eyes became accustomed to the gloom, it became obvious that the woman in question was not her daughter. The woman stood with a majestic bearing that in Diana would have been unconscious, and was wrapped in a regal grey robe. There was no trace of Diana's inner warmth in her gaze either.

"Lady Persephone!"

Hippolyta climbed out of bed, and gave a perfunctory bow – though perhaps a little shallower than she would have given to any other goddess. "How may I serve the queen of the Underworld?" she asked, somewhat coolly.

"I bring news of your daughter."

Any thought of the lingering tension between her and the goddess vanished in the flare of her alarm. "Is she – She is not –"

Persephone shook her head. "No, she has not passed into my care. Though, she may very well be in danger of doing so."

The Amazon felt blood drain from her face. "What has happened?" she whispered.

"She lies in a coma – she was infected by a parasite cast onto her by Circe, and though it has now been removed, she is still unconscious. Nothing her friends in the Justice League have done can help her, and neither myself nor Hera have been able to reach her either." When the goddess placed a hand on her shoulder, Hippolyta managed not to flinch back.

"She is not listening," Persephone told her. "She does not _wish _to wake."

Hippolyta frowned. "What? Why?"

"I do not know," the goddess said. "She needs to know there is something to waken for."

Hippolyta nodded quickly. "Then I will give her a reason."

Persephone nodded. "Before I transport you... I would have you know something."

Hippolyta narrowed her eyes fractionally. "Which is?" While her daughter was lying somewhere, cut off from Themyscira, she had no desire to parley with the wife of her former lover.

"Her father."

Outrage broke through her normal veil of reverence. "She has no _father_. _He_ may have –"

The goddess held up a hand. "Do not waste both our times' with futile protestations, Hippolyta. Hades is her father as much as you are her mother. I do not pretend to believe that he is perfect, or good, or anything less than... manipulative and a deceiver, frankly."

There was a moment of silence before the corners of Hippolyta's mouth quirked. Persephone caught the movement, and smirked in return. "I would not ever try to lessen the impact of the crimes he has dealt against you. They are numerous and despicable."

Hippolyta could not – and certainly did not wish to – argue with the goddess. Persephone spoke again. "But do not doubt that he loves his daughter, in his own way. When he learned of Circe's crimes against Diana, he reacted as any parent would. As you certainly would."

"So he flayed the skin from her bones?" Hippolyta asked, her tone both vicious and sceptical. It had been something she had clung to over the millennia, that Hades was a monster, incapable of any kind of positive emotion. Some might say she was deluding herself, but what of it, if it helped her live with her own foolish past actions?

"The screams would seem to indicate so," Persephone replied, a triumphant gleam in her steely gaze.

Hippolyta lifted her chin and gave a curt nod. "Good. Now – transport me to Man's World. I have an Amazon to recover."

Persephone raised her eyebrow, but nodded. "Hippolyta – be mindful of your relationship –" she began, almost hesitantly.

"I do not require your guidance in dealing with any Amazon, least of all Diana," she interrupted harshly.

The second eyebrow joined the first. "As you wish, _Y__our Majesty,_" Persephone responded coolly. "Though, whether you will heed it or not, I have one more piece of advice for you. Should you fail, then there is one other who may be able to help Diana."

"Who?" she demanded impatiently.

"The one known as Batman. Whatever your thoughts on his gender, he cares deeply for her. Only Aphrodite would be able to discern his heart, but I would wager he even loves her. If you fail –"

"I will not," Hippolyta cut her off. She had no intention of leaving until she had met with success.

The goddess stared at her for a moment, and Hippolyta wondered if she was imagining the mingled skepticism and pity in the other woman's gaze. After several moments, Persephone waved her hand, and Hippolyta found herself standing on a cold metal floor, now fully dressed with her crown residing in its customary place. The question of her location was swiftly answered when a large man dressed in a blue and red costume came around the corner, a man she recognised... Superman, wasn't it?

He seemed as surprised to see her as she was to see him. "Queen Hippolyta! What are you doing here? I – I mean, forgive me, ma'am, but we weren't expecting –"

She held up a hand. "Rest assured, Superman, my visit here is a... surprise to me as well. Now, if you would be so kind – take me to my daughter."

He nodded, somewhat meekly. "Um, right this way."

He led her down a maze of metal corridors, each one looking exactly the same as the last. Dressed as she was, she drew some curious looks, and some alarmed looks too – specifically at her sword. Eventually, however, they arrived at the med-bay, and her guide stopped.

Hippolyta didn't slow her pace, but nor did she run. She walked calmly and with dignity to Diana's bedside, where she sat down. Uttering a prayer to Athena, she asked the goddess to bless her with wisdom to help her daughter.

No. She was not here as a mother. Hippolyta may have disliked Persephone, but the queen of the Underworld loved Diana, had so since Diana was a child. If the love of Persephone had failed to bring Diana out, then Hippolyta was certain an order from her queen would do so.

Bending to Diana's ear, she issued her order in their native tongue. "Champion of Themyscira, Princess Diana, heed me. As your queen, as undisputed ruler of the Amazon people, I command you to wake!"

She paused for a moment; Diana made no movement of any kind.

Slightly perturbed, Hippolyta's brow wrinkled as she tried again. "You are a warrior of Themyscira, an Amazon. Your behavior is a disgrace to your people, your heritage and your queen. _Fight_, sister! Fight whatever has shackled you and reclaim your pride!"

There, if nothing else, Diana should be leaping at her, full of fury at being labeled a disgrace. She wasn't. She was still lying there, eyes closed and face impassive. There was no sign that she had heard a word.

_Very well then. If persuasion will not work..._ Time to try that other most Amazonian of tactics. Hippolyta straightened grimly – and backhanded her daughter. Diana's head snapped to the side, and the queen drew her arm back to try again –

– only to find her wrist enclosed in an iron grip. She turned coldly furious eyes on a very shocked Superman. "Do not interfere in Amazon affairs!" she hissed. "Release me at once!"

He shook his head. "Sorry, but not happening. You can't just hit her –"

"If it will work –"

"Of course it won't work, she's still –"

"Have you ever tried it?" she demanded.

He flinched back at the very idea. "Well, no, but surely –"

"Then how do you know it will not work?"

He gestured at the bed – to where Diana was still lying unconscious. "Because it _hasn't _worked! I'm sorry, Hippolyta, but I won't let you do it again!"

Finally, though still angry, Hippolyta nodded. Superman let go of her arm warily. Then the queen disappeared. Clark blinked, and then sighed. _Whole world's going to hell..._ Sitting down on the edge of Diana's bed, he took her hand and smoothed her hair back, eyeing the scarlet mark on her cheek.

_Wherever you are, Diana...maybe you're better off there..._

Clark had always tried to respect Hippolyta, mostly because Diana so obviously revered her. After what he had just witnessed, though, his good opinion of the Amazon queen had dropped a few notches.

* * *

Hippolyta had only blinked – and suddenly she found herself facing a palatial house. Not a palace in the same classical style as her own on Themyscira, but far too large and grand to be anything less. She wrinkled her nose slightly; her residence may be big, but its grandeur was simple. This place was anything but. Clearly the dwelling of a man – and since her apparition here could only be the work of Persephone, Hippolyta assumed she was here to see the Batman.

Whatever her former lover's wife may have been, subtle she was not. Also, now that she thought about it, the fact that she was here so quickly, led Hippolyta to believe that Persephone had predicted that she would fail to wake Diana. The fact that she had mentioned the one called Batman only supported that. She ground her teeth in annoyance.

After a moment, Hippolyta straightened her shoulders and put Persephone out of her mind. She had to remain focused on Diana, and no matter how much her pride protested at the idea of asking a man for help, she had failed to help her daughter. If Batman could, then it was a price she was more than willing to pay. If it helped Diana... she would do anything.

Taking a deep breath, she raised her fist and knocked on the door. After a few moments, the door opened, and an elderly man stood there. He spent half a second giving her an assessing glance, before bowing.

"Your Majesty. Welcome."

She raised an eyebrow, curious despite herself. "You know who I am?"

He nodded, his lips quirking into a faint smile. "Quite, Your Majesty. Princess Diana has your eyes."

* * *

Bruce sighed. Normally the thought of someone being tortured for all eternity didn't make him happy, but damn it he'd _wanted _that sense of vicious triumph when he'd heard that Circe had been – quite literally apparently – dragged back to hell. Still, when Tim had come back from patrol looking shaken, and told him that a) he'd almost been literally turned into a robin, and b) a goddess had saved his life, Bruce had expected to feel happy.

Nonetheless, whatever had happened to Circe, it had obviously had no impact upon Diana. That meant, no matter how much torture and degradation Hades put Circe through, the victory was still hers. She'd still taken down the princess of the Amazons. She was still responsible for the fact that Diana wasn't chatting animatedly to all her friends, and avoiding his gaze, as he was sure she would for a while.

No, no amount of pain that was inflicted upon Circe would ever be enough to make up for what she had done to Diana.

The doors at the top of the stairs opened. "Master Bruce, you have a visitor."

At five a.m., it could only be someone from the League. "Bring them down."

"I certainly will not allow you to receive royalty in the Batcave, sir," Alfred said sternly.

Bruce was out of his chair in less than a second. "Alfred, is she – Diana –?"

The Englishman's expression was gentle, but sober. "It is not Miss Diana, sir, I am sorry."

He frowned. "But you said royalty..." His eyes widened. "Hippolyta's here?"

Alfred nodded. "Yes, sir."

He blinked. "Why?"

"As to that, Master Bruce, you will have to find out yourself. The queen is waiting in the library."

Frown still fixed on his face, Bruce made his way upstairs, wondering what on Earth the queen of the Amazons was doing in his library. Could she somehow blame him for Diana's condition? Preparing himself for a fight, Bruce sighed and pushed open the clock.

Hippolyta sat in an armchair by the window, examining his copy of the _Iliad. _She shut it and looked out of the window. "Homer's version does not correspond to my memories," she sighed.

"How do you remember it?"

She looked at him. It was a relief to see those eyes. Persephone had Diana's face, but Hippolyta had her warm blue eyes. Neither of them, though, were Diana. "As a time less of heroes as it was vicious brutes." She looked at the book, then stood and slid it back into place on the shelf. "At least he captured Hector's nobility correctly," she added quietly.

He waited until she turned back to him. "Why are you here, Queen Hippolyta?"

"Were it not for Persephone, I would not be," she answered. "She came to me some time ago, told me of what has happened to my daughter, and how Diana lies trapped now. I went to her."

"And she didn't wake," Bruce assumed heavily.

"No. I wonder now if perhaps I chose the wrong path," she admitted. "Persephone loves my daughter, but her love failed. I came to Diana as Queen to Amazon, not as a mother approaches her daughter." Though clearly ashamed of her actions, she did not look away from his gaze. "I too have failed."

"So why are you here?"

"Because Persephone advised me that, where I could not succeed, you still might."

"I've done enough damage," he replied curtly. "If I'd managed to get Diana out of the parasite's influence fully –"

"As I understand it," Hippolyta interrupted quietly, "there was nothing anyone could have done to achieve that."

He looked away. The queen continued. "Whatever it was that Diana dreamt of, it is something that reality does not hold. I do not know if she doesn't remember reality, if its harshness outweighs its light. If that is the case, she needs to be reminded of its goodness."

"Its goodness," he echoed. "Then I am certainly not the person to remind her."

"But you hold what she wants. If you can return my daughter, then I beg you to do so. I suspect," she added gently, putting a hand on his shoulder and making him look at her, "that I am not the only one who misses her."

He could not – and did not – deny that. But in that next second... Hippolyta vanished. Apparently, she had delivered the message Persephone had wanted her to. Nevertheless, her words remained hanging in the room. _I do not know if she doesn't remember reality..._

What if that was the problem? Fear of the unknown? If that was the case...

Then he owed her the truth.

* * *

An hour later, J'onn, Flash and Shayera were watching over Diana's isolation room in the infirmary. They'd decided to move her into her own room, since no one knew how long the princess would be locked in a coma.

It wasn't, however, concern that was making them watch the room. They were all staring at the man sitting next to the princess. They couldn't hear what he was saying, but from his body language, it wasn't something he was happy doing. That meant it had to be emotional.

"What's he doing?" Wally finally asked.

J'onn's answer was simple. "Telling her."

"Telling her what?"

"Their story."

Shayera cocked her head. "What do you mean?"

The Martian was silent for a moment, pondering how much to reveal and how much needed to stay between Diana and Bruce. "Under the influence of the Black Mercy, Diana refused to believe that her fabricated memories were false. With their loss, her mind appears to have shut down."

"Why?" Flash asked. "What was her heart's desire?"

J'onn said nothing, only looked back at the couple inside the infirmary. Flash caught on quickly. "Oh."

Shayera chuckled softly, sadly. "Let me guess... he feels guilty."

"Very much so," J'onn replied.

"What does he blame himself for, exactly?" she asked, not seeing how this could possibly be Bruce's fault.

J'onn shrugged. "That he was Diana's heart's desire. That he allowed her to fall in love with him."

Wally spoke. "How exactly does he think he could have prevented that?"

There was only one answer to that. "He's Batman."

Wally snorted. "True." He paused. "Does he love her?"

"It is... difficult to tell with Batman."

"He does," Shayera said softly, her eyes still on Bruce's face.

"How do you know?" Wally asked.

"Look at him," she pointed out. "This is killing him. I know the feeling," she added in an undertone. She cleared her throat and looked back at J'onn. "Can she hear him?"

The Martian shook his head sadly. "I do not know. I can't tell if my telepathy is being blocked... or if there are no thoughts to read."

Shayera nodded slowly and turned back. They all stood together in silence, watching. Clark had told them of Hippolyta's brief appearance, and the disaster her visit to Diana had turned out to be. In light of that, and their own failure to draw Diana out, the three of them were very much aware that this was likely the last chance to bring her back to them.

And it was all down to Bruce.

* * *

**A/N: Review please! **


	14. Wake

**A/N Thank you for the reviews, and thank you to my fabulous beta, Angel Queen. She's the reason you're reading one chapter instead of waiting for another four lol. All hail Angel Queen! **

**Chapter Fourteen - Wake**

"The first time we met was when Earth was in danger."

She'd given him a list, there on that false rooftop, of instances, of moments that she refused to believe were fabricated.

_The first time we met, the first time we danced, our first kiss, our wedding? Don't tell me they were all lies._

But he had told her they were all lies, and it had cost her her mind. So now... he needed to tell her the truth, and hope that it was enough to restore her mind. The truth about how they'd met, the truth about everything.

He would start at the beginning, with how they met. How Batman met Wonder Woman.

"There were invaders from Mars who would have decimated us, but probably wouldn't have gotten anywhere near to your home."

He felt a surge of pride in her, even to this day. "You chose to help." That wasthe right word. It had been a choice. It wasn't duty that drove her, or loyalty, but _choice. _

"Against the wishes of your mother, you stole the armour and left the only home you'd ever known to help a world you owed nothing to." Had Hippolyta been angry, then? When she discovered the armour of the champion had vanished – and her daughter too? She hadn't been when she exiled Diana, but that was months later. When Diana arrived, fresh from Themyscira, into Man's World, she'd made a huge sacrifice to help.

"You were magnificent," he told her, smiling just a little. He knew he was being rather sentimental, but didn't honestly give a damn anymore. If it got Diana back, then he'd do – or say – anything. "A true Amazon. You were... fearless; you didn't even flinch. I wanted for find out more about you," he confessed, "not just because I didn't trust you, but... you fascinated me."

That was true. His paranoia and distrust had meant he'd investigated all the Justice League members, yet with Diana he researched not only her powers and contingency plans if she went rogue, but everything from ancient Greek culture to her favourite drink. After a few weeks in the League, Diana had found a voucher for a year's supply of free iced mochas from Starbucks left anonymously on her bed. She had no idea it was from him, and still didn't to this day. Why couldn't he just tell her things like that? There were so many aspects of their relationship that had been left unsaid, little things that had built up into a wall between them. To him it hadn't needed to be said, but obviously he'd been wrong in thinking it was the same for Diana.

For Diana... he needed to tell her everything. She needed to hear him say it, and he had never seen that. Not until now.

He took another look at her sleeping face. This was where his silence had led. He just hoped it wasn't too late, and that wherever she had retreated, Diana could still hear him.

* * *

He went back to the infirmary the next day, for the next item – no, not item, he couldn't think about this as a list. This was about... the heart.

"The first time we danced was in Paris."

He'd deduced who it was before he turned around. The questions of the press had told him that much; especially, he thought with a mental growl, the ones about Superman. That had been one particularly annoying bone the paparazzi had never let go of, the idea of the world's two strongest beings in a romantic relationship. In Paris, though, it had amused him more than anything. Not as much as the expression on her face when he did turn around.

"I didn't know you'd be there." He hadn't lied – he really did have to take care of some business as well as the Star Labs break-ins. Meeting Wonder Woman had been a surprising, yet welcome, bonus. There were so many other places in the world she could be after all, and he hadn't bothered to get a copy of her schedule. Why should she have chosen Paris?

A smile grew on his face as he remembered more of that night. Surprise that she'd been there, swiftly followed by surprise at the stir of lust and desire her presence had caused. "I knew you were beautiful before that night, but I hadn't realised how attracted to you I was." It had been a little disturbing at first, but not particularly difficult to cope with. When he accepted the attraction, he could move past it. In theory.

"I wanted you to work out who I was." That led to a chuckle of self-deprecation. "God that sounds ridiculous. What's the point of having a secret identity if you want people to figure it out?"

Diana wasn't 'people', though, she was... _Diana_. That had never happened before either. In Clark's case, he hadn't wanted him to know, and now (not that he'd ever admit it), the reporter was probably one of the few people Bruce trusted implicitly with it. With Diana, well, he'd _wanted _to see the flash of recognition in her eyes. Bruce knew that she wouldn't try to take advantage of the knowledge, or cross the line in missions. Partly it had been curiosity, and another part desire. He wanted to know how his name would sound on her lips.

"It wasn't conscious, but you have no idea how proud I was of you when you put the pieces together. Then you told me I was taking you dancing!" He actually laughed this time, out loud in the med-bay. It had taken most of his willpower not to burst out laughing back then, when they'd stood together in the rubble of the Kasnian royal palace. She'd gone from serious to sexy in one breath, all without it being forced. The laughter gentled into a soft smile as he ran a finger over the back of her hand before squeezing it slightly. "I swear, Diana, I grinned like an idiot once I got back to the Cave."

* * *

Today's topic was the kiss.

"I'm not going to pretend our first kiss was real," he began with a wry smile. "It was quick thinking on your part, and it distracted them and me, but it wasn't real."

He chuckled. "I don't think you would have initiated it if it was real," he told her softly. Diana was the bravest, most courageous woman in the world, but there were some things that could make her blush, some situations in which she was shy. Of course... he could be wrong. She certainly hadn't displayed any shyness in Gorilla City. However, a real first kiss demanded dinner, dancing, and a date. All of which were products of Man's World, and all were things that Diana would be unfamiliar with. He smiled at her. How would she react to that? He couldn't imagine that she would enter the situation with anything less than her usual grace, but... it would be nice to see her blush.

"I kissed you back," he said suddenly. "There was a moment, just for a second, that I thought you responded."

His mouth turned up at the corner. "I'm still not sure if you were apologising for kissing me... or for _kissing _me." He really, really hoped it hadn't been the latter.

The silence went on for too long. "It wasn't real," he repeated softly. "But it made me want to kiss you. To _really _kiss you." His eyes closed. "To watch your eyes widen as I pulled you towards me. To take your lips with mine and taste you like we had all the time in the world and we weren't being chased by aliens who had taken over the planet."

His heart cracked a little bit more when he opened his eyes. To see her blank face still locked into unconsciousness. "But I didn't, did I?" he whispered. He lifted her hand and kissed her fingers. "I'm sorry I never kissed you, Diana." He did it again, letting his lips linger this time. "I'm so sorry."

* * *

"I gave you reasons once."

He couldn't look at her this time, not today. Instead he spoke to the cold metal floor, hearing and hating the words echoing around the med bay. "Why we couldn't be together." He sighed. "And they mattered, they were good reasons – at the time."

He couldn't keep from shaking his head. "But if this is where those reasons lead... then no. No," he repeated. "They're not worth this kind of suffering."

She took another breath in her sleep.

He turned to her and, this time, didn't take her hand. Instead he removed his cowl and moved, sitting on the edge of the bed and sliding a hand under the nape of her neck, lifting her torso into his arms. "I take them back, Princess," he whispered. "I take them all back."

His eyes closed as he pressed his forehead to hers. "Please, Diana. Just wake up and I'll marry you tomorrow if that's what you want."

One tear escaped, falling almost immediately from his face to hers. "Diana, please..." A sob escaped him – it was too late now, he didn't have anything else. He'd told her their story, of how things had _really _been between them, and not the fictitious visions the Mercy had twisted into being. If this didn't work, then Diana was gone forever. There was only one thing to say. "I love you... so just wake up."

Diana's heart-rate skipped a beat. He looked up, frowning. When it picked up again, it had sped up. Bruce's eyes widened, and he looked back at Diana's face. Was it just him, or was there more colour in her cheeks? Her heart-rate was still increasing. Ninety beats per minutes, then one hundred.

His own heart responded as he looked at the princess in his arms again. _Come on, Diana, come on..._

Underneath their lids, her eyes started moving.

_Yes, yes, yes, yes... _Focusing his mind, he called for J'onn. _J'onn, I think Diana's waking up – bring the others. _

Knowing that if she sat abruptly she'd probably knock him out, Bruce laid her gently back down on the bed and moved to the side, fists clenched tightly at his sides. Diana moved. She _moved. _Just her head, but it was the first time in months she'd done anything independently. When Flash got there, a half-second later, she let out a sleepy little noise, as though she felt the breeze Wally's hasty arrival had generated. The two men shared a swift, hopeful glance. Everyone else was there within a minute of J'onn's call, all looking at the princess's form with wide, expectant eyes.

Suddenly, Diana snapped awake, sitting bolt-upright and chest heaving with the massive gulps of air she was taking. "Bruce?" she gasped.

"I'm here," he said immediately.

Her eyes snapped to him, relief flooding her face. Then slowly, her gaze traveled down to the bat symbol on his chest. Slowly, inexorably, her expression closed. The joy that had lit up her eyes a second ago was snuffed out. She went boneless again, lying back on the bed and closing her eyes for a brief moment. When she opened them, her expression was totally blank, impassive.

He realised he'd lost her. His tale had been enough to call her back into the waking world, but not enough to make her let go of the dream she had lived.

Bruce felt his own expression close, and his heart shatter.

* * *

**A/N: Review please!**


	15. Nothing

**A/N: Thank you for the reviews, and thank you to my own personal guardian angel (otherwise known as Angel Queen). **

**Chapter Fifteen - Nothing**

"Diana," Clark smiled.

She looked at him, offering a weak smile. "Kal."

Her voice was hoarse through not using it for so long, and she looked surprised at the rough sound of it. She squinted; the lights in the infirmary far too bright for someone who'd not used her eyes in weeks. Bruce watched every realisation hit her like another nail in the coffin.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

She nodded. "Weak. What happened?"

"Don't you remember anything?" he asked, confusion across his features.

She shook her head. "Nothing."

Bruce wasn't surprised she was going to keep quiet about the whole thing. It would be easier for her to readjust if it was known she didn't remember anything. No one would be asking questions. He didn't blame her. Diana looked at him in the periphery of her vision, then relaxed when she realised he wasn't going to contradict her.

"Wait a second," Wally said, looking puzzled, "I thought you guys remembered everything?"

Clark shrugged. "We did, but then your experience was different to ours, Diana," he said, looking at the princess.

She nodded mutely.

"Maybe it's for the best," Shayera put in.

Diana blinked as though she hadn't registered the redhead's presence before. "Shayera!" She glanced around, spotted GL and seemed equally surprised. "Shouldn't one of you be home with –"

She stopped, and it wasn't difficult to work out how that sentence would end. So her heart's desire hadn't just been to see him happy – it was to see all the people she loved happy. To see her winged friend with the man she loved, with Rex already in the cradle.

No one dared point out that Diana had just given herself away.

"Do you need anything?" Clark asked kindly.

_For us to stop staring at her like she's some kind of experiment_, Bruce thought.

Diana seemed to be thinking along the same lines. "I think I need a shower," she said. "And maybe something to drink?"

"Got it!"

There were two red blurs within five seconds; the first was Flash disappearing, the second was him returning, iced mocha in hand. "Here you go," he grinned cheerfully.

Diana looked ready to weep with gratitude at something that _was_ the same. "Thanks, Wally." She took it, and closed her eyes while she drank deeply through the straw.

Bruce watched her body language, noted the shallow breathing, the gulping motion of her throat. She was on the verge of a panic attack, he realised. His admiration for her went up a hundred-fold when she squared her shoulders and calmed her breathing, wrestled back her self-control. The fact that she _had _to just made him want to hold her.

The fact that he never would again made him want to be anywhere but here.

Finished with her drink, she looked up at her friends, still gathered around her. They all looked back expectantly. She met Bruce's eyes; only for half a second, but it was enough. There was resentment, grief, but it was the fear that made his heart drop. She was afraid of him? No, he realised. She wasn't afraid of him. She was afraid of what happened next. How she would get through every meeting without her heart breaking even more than it already was.

When she looked away, he was left wondering if he'd ever look into those blue eyes again. Courage failing him, he muttered something about Gotham needing him – though it was probably true – and stalked out of the room, turning his back on the woman he loved. He didn't want to, it _hurt_ to do it, but at the moment, Bruce knew it was what she wanted, even if she didn't say so. She didn't want him in her line of sight, not when he was a living, breathing reminder of all she had lost.

---

It became a little easier to breathe after Br- Batman left.

Not much easier, because this was still wrong. She put up with it for as long as she could; put up with Flash chattering away, with Clark's patient kindness and with J'onn looking at her with the greatest sympathy in his orange eyes. She knew he wasn't reading her mind – whether out of sympathy or self-preservation she wasn't sure. If he had been reading her mind, he'd be screaming.

Eventually, however, Diana couldn't take it anymore, and had to get out. Still pleading the excuse of a shower, she allowed Flash to help her to her quarters. Flash, because he, at least, was the same; her irrepressible, slightly clumsy, well-meaning younger brother. His behavior, she could handle.

She managed a smile – though nowhere near a real one – before he left.

Alone in her room, Diana did what she'd been aching to for the last hour. She pinched herself. Hard; it would leave a bruise, and it hurt... and she didn't wake up. Why wouldn't she wake up?

"No..."

She did it again, and again, and again, until she had angry red marks marching down both arms, from her shoulders to wrists.

"No, no, no, no..."

They all hurt. They were all throbbing with pain, and they were all going to leave deep purple bruises tomorrow. Because tomorrow would still come. She'd wake up into a nightmare.

"No, no, Hera, _please_, no! Give it back!"

At the pain in her knees, she vaguely registered falling onto the floor. She didn't cry; what would be the point? Crying wouldn't take her back. It wouldn't bring– It wouldn't being _them _back. It wouldn't recreate the world where she was warm, and safe and loved. This was what she had now.

Her life, empty and pathetic as it was. For all eternity.

Blindly, she stumbled to the shower and turned the water on, increasing the temperature until it turned all the rest of her skin lobster red, scalding her. Fully clothed and not feeling the pain, Diana slid down the wall to slump on the floor of the shower, staring at nothing. The water on her face was not joined by tears, even as she watched the skin on her bare legs blister and burn away. She didn't feel it.

Her family... Her whole family, she realised; she hadn't been an exile, and now she was – that barrier between herself and Themyscira was once more in place. It wasn't what she wanted; she'd grown to the point where the island and her sisters were not enough for her, likely never would be again.

She had _nowhere _to go that was the same. Her apartment probably didn't even exist. The Manor... was a dead house on top of a cliff. The Watchtower was too well-maintained; there were no little creaks, or clanks of the gravity simulator. Everything was too... efficient.

Everywhere she looked, she found only an alien cold. It _hurt._

It wasn't just her either – what about Shayera, and John? They should be at home, watching their newborn son sleep, not avoiding the glances of the other and wishing things were different. Things should be different. She should be a godmother, holding Rex and looking forward to the day when… when her own children would be born.

Except that they wouldn't. Because none of it had been real.

"I must be thankful for small _mercies_..." she whispered. At least... At least she did not… Have her own babies to hold in her arms and to see the look of pride and love in Bruce's eyes –

Drawing in a gasp, she pushed that thought away. A warrior did not think about what she wanted – she thought about what she had. She did not dwell on fantasies – she looked at the here and now.

The here and now was that _they_ did not exist. The future was that they never _would_ exist.

Of course, the truth was that her family had never existed. Not her husband, not her mother in Man's World, or her father. Not her mother in Themyscira – that mother had been hers, and hers alone. Not Queen first and mother second. Her _mother. _

_All gone, and never really been there to begin with. _

She absently turned the water off, and sat there until her blistered skin healed flawlessly. Flawless. Never again. She would always be scarred.

Her melancholy lasted until there was a rapid knock at the door. She counted twelve knocks in less than a second. She let her head loll to one side, feeling slightly drunk.

Wally's voice came through the metal_. _"You drown in the shower, Di?"

_I wish_. No. She couldn't carry on this way. If she did... she'd die. On the outside this time. So she forced what she thought was a laugh into her voice. "No, Flash. Just deciding what to wear, that's all."

"Well hurry up, alright? Thought you'd be hungry, so I got chow mein, pizza and sushi – didn't know what you'd be in the mood for."

Feeling a wave of gratitude toward her young friend, Diana hauled herself to her feet. "I'll be out in a minute," she called.

"Okay – I'll be in the commissary when you're done."

"Alright."

As she dressed, the princess wondered how long it would be before she could bear to be with anyone except Wally. He alone was her link to... home that didn't make her want to scream in agony. Anyone else – she wasn't sure she wouldn't be bursting into tears every time she made eye contact with Shayera, or smacking John, or expecting an invitation to Clark and Lois's wedding. She was pretty sure J'onn would be avoiding her for a while. She could not blame him – he'd gotten used to being happy since his marriage, and being around her he would bring him anything but happiness.

Dressed in a cream sweater and jeans, she made her way to the commissary with a somewhat cautious air. Hera, it was so... _clean_. Where was the peeling paint, the flickering lights? When she entered the turbo-lift, it hummed down to the commissary level with speed and smoothness. Obviously the height of technological sophistication. It wasn't right. No, more than that – it was _too _right. Everything worked perfectly. So perfectly it ached.

When she entered the commissary, she headed straight to Wally's table without looking left or right, or responding to the various hails and greetings that came from most of the heroes in there.

"Finally," Flash grinned as she sat down. He pushed three small mountains of food toward her. "Now what are you in the mood for?"

Quite honestly she didn't feel like she'd ever be hungry again, but he was looking at her so hopefully it was easy to force the food down. In her mouth, the noodles felt like she was chewing on elastic bands. For Wally's sake, though, she'd eat.

Happy to see her eating, Wally embarked on his usual chatter. "So I have a date tonight."

"Really?" she responded, trying to remember what kind of questions she should be asking. They came to the front of her mind slowly. "Who is she? What's she like?"

"Her name's Linda – she's a reporter with CCN and –"

_What is it with superheroes and reporters? _she thought, shaking her head inwardly.

Wally apparently had developed telepathy. He checked around to make sure the Man of Steel wasn't lurking behind him. "- well don't tell Supes, but she's _way _hotter than his reporter."

Diana forced a smile. It felt like it might be approaching genuine.

She sat with Wally for another half an hour or so, before excusing herself – she was truly tired, despite having slept under the Mercy for weeks, and been in her coma for days after that. Honestly, she had no memory of the coma; all she knew was that she'd been ripped from the family she loved and woken up here.

As she lay down to sleep, a last, half-mocking thought crossed her mind, and she let out a sound that could have been a chuckle or a sob. _I wonder how I could get my hands on another Black Mercy..._

_---_

**A/N: Review please! **


	16. Departure

**A/N: Thank you for the reviews! **

**Chapter Sixteen - Departure**

It was getting harder, Diana thought. She'd accepted it now, that this was her reality, that she was forever separated from her home. There was no point in wishing to go back, so she stopped. Her days passed as though she were simply sleepwalking, or having a very long out-of-body experience. She watched herself walk, talk, go on missions. It was only when Batman was around that her heart was dragged back into her body – in time to feel a sharp stab of grief. Each time it was as acute as it had been on waking up on the med-bay. A shard of icy cold pain, piercing through her core and leaving splinters behind.

Batman had kept his distance, something for which Diana knew she should be grateful, but it did not change the fact that he still existed. They were never in the same room unless during a Founder's meeting, and if she had to look at him, she glared at the bat symbol splayed across his chest.

How _dare_ he? How dare he just sit there and act like he'd done nothing wrong? As if he'd saved her – rather than condemned her – from something.

However, it was none of those things that was making it harder. They just _were_, would always be. No, what was getting harder was to pretend she remembered nothing. To look Shayera in the eye and pretend she had no idea a person named Rex Stewart would ever exist, could ever exist. Unfortunately for Diana, Shayera was, first and foremost, a detective, just like Batman. So, she knew. She knew that Diana was still dying.

Resultantly, Diana now had two people to avoid. However, whereas Batman was barely on the Watchtower anymore, Shayera was on it all the time.

The day she found out for sure, though, was immediately after a routine Founder's meeting. Diana left once she was sure Batman had already gone. That was her test. If she could get out of the room after him – without going _after _him – and without anyone else seeing her grief. So far she'd passed each and every time. Today she failed. She left, as normal, after Batman, went to her room, and then, a few seconds later, answered the door when Shayera knocked.

The redhead's eyes were wide, and then narrowed almost immediately. "I knew it!" She slammed her fist into the wall beside the door. "Damn it, Diana, why have you just been hiding and crying away –"

"What?" Diana interrupted, a smile on her lips. "Shayera, what are you talking about? Of course I haven't been! Where would you get an idea like that?"

Shayera looked at her as though she'd gone mad. "Maybe because you're crying now!"

The princess's laugh was tinkling. "Don't be ridiculous –"

The Thanagarian grabbed her arm and dragged her over to the mirror. Diana fell silent – her friend was right. She _was _crying, tears streaming, silent and unnoticed, in wet tracks down her cheeks. The instinctual reaction was to wipe them away. Shayera caught her wrist when she tried.

"You're still claiming that you haven't been crying?" she asked quietly.

"Yes," Diana said quickly.

Shayera dropped her arm like it was the fanged end of a poisonous snake. "Then why are you crying now?"

Diana was still looking in wonder at her own face. So _this _was what heartbreak looked like. Her grief, manifest in her expression, every ounce of it. It was breathtaking.

She mumbled the answer through numb lips. "Because – Because there's nothing – left to do..."

Shayera felt tears gather in her own eyes at this outpouring of grief in her friend. It was something she knew all-too-well – tripped from everything you loved, seeing the man you wanted more than anything else every single day and be utterly unable to take him in your arms. With the invasion, she'd lost everything Diana had now. Her home, John, the love of the people of Earth... She'd lost it all – the only difference was that Diana had had no choice in losing those things. Shayera – at first – only had herself to blame. Now, she felt, it was legitimate to blame John for at least some of it; after all, he'd pissed about for years now, dangling both she and Mari on a proverbial hook.

But this wasn't about her. "Diana?" she asked after a moment.

No change but the slight reduction in the frequency of the princess's sobs. She refused to even look at her friend.

Shayera lifted her chin firmly. "Diana, there's nothing you can do. I know it's hard, but you have to move on."

"How can I?" she choked out. "When everywhere I look he's – he's there, and it's like there's signs of him _everywhere_, and I c-can't get away from him, or –!"

Shayera bit her bottom lip. "What do you mean everywhere?"

"I-in _there, _it wasn't _Batman_ who funded the Watchtower – it was Green Arrow, and," a strangled chuckle escaped the princess, "can you imagine a Watchtower without Batman's... _rigidity_? It was almost falling apart all the time."

Even the redhead had to grin at that. She couldn't imagine Ollie's Watchtower being as... efficient as Bruce's. However, Diana's smile had long since faded. "And now, everywhere I look, it's clean, and well-run and the technology's up to date, and it's _Batman _everywhere –"

"Okay, okay, stop now, otherwise you're going to start crying again," Shayera interrupted gently. "Or worse you're going to start me off."

Diana let out another watery laugh. "Can't have that," she said, nodding and wiping the tears roughly away.

She would not cry again.

* * *

_Batman? _

Bruce jerked, then relaxed when he realised that J'onn's voice had been projected into his mind. The Martian had not suddenly appeared next to him – he'd simply been brooding.

He sat up straighter. _What is it, J'onn? _

_I hesitate to bother you, my friend, but there is no one else who could help me. _

Frowning now, Bruce felt concern rise up. _What's wrong? _

_Diana – I am worried for her. Superman and I both are. _

Yes. They weren't the only ones. He'd expected – and aided – her avoidance of him, but her complete lack of reaction wasn't comforting. He understood that he wasn't the man she wanted, but after much soul searching – a habit that he hated at the best of times, but that he loathed right now – he'd decided that somewhere, surely, that Bruce existed inside him.

He'd always thought that potential had been stolen from him at eight years old; it was pointless to consider the what-ifs after all, and he still believed that...but what _if_?

What _if _he still had, somewhere inside him, that potential? Batman would never go away, he was too deeply integrated into Bruce. However, equally true was the fact that he was _more _than Batman. In thirty years, he had never explored what might be hiding inside that _more_. Diana's situation had forced him to. Until he knew for sure, how could he offer her anything? He hoped he had it in him, but conversely, he hated that. He was the Batman – he didn't operate based on _hope _and _faith. _He worked using logic, using cold, hard fact. _Hope _didn't come into the equation anywhere.

Nonetheless, there were now two reasons hope was in play. The first was that he was gambling his heart. The second was the fact that he had never met anyone more driven by their emotions than Diana was. In order to gauge what her reaction would be, he needed to feel as she would – and that meant hope was all he had. Yet with that hope, came doubt.

He had discovered more of himself – but what if that more wasn't enough?

_Batman?_

Bruce jerked again, before cursing mentally. No doubt J'onn had heard all of that.

_I find mentally humming 'Ride of the Valkyries' helps when blocking out unwanted thoughts, _his Martian friend helpfully informed him.

Bruce smirked. _Thank you, J'onn. _

_But – about Diana..._

_I know, J'onn. I know..._

_

* * *

_

After Shayera had left her, Diana did not sleep, and nor did she try to. Instead, she pushed away all emotion until she could think properly. Calmly. Logically.

She'd been denied her heart's desire.

The superficial surface of her heart's desire was everywhere she looked.

She could not heal.

That left only one solution.

Having debated with herself all night, Diana rose just as the Watchtower was coming back into the Sun's rays, then knelt at her alter, praying to Athena that she was doing the right thing.

Twenty minutes later, and carrying a plain white envelope, she went to see Superman. As normal, he was in the conference room going over a few of the day's events and priorities. He smiled at her as she came in, and she placed the envelope on the pile of papers without a word.

"What's this?"

Her voice was perfectly even. "My resignation from the Justice League."

Clark's jaw dropped. "_What_? Why?"

She shook her head. "You and I both know that I'm not doing any good while I'm here, Kal. I'm just... existing." Diana snorted bitterly, adding, "And barely at that."

"But surely... I mean... given time..."

She smiled sadly. "You've spoken to J'onn, haven't you?"

He nodded. "Yes," he admitted reluctantly. "And he said... that he hadn't dared to enter your mind again, because it was crippling."

"Because it was crippling... Well yes, that's pretty much how I feel. Clark, I don't mean to trivialise what you went through, but..."

"But what you want is still stalking around the Watchtower, putting the fear of God into anyone who so much as breathes wrong?"

Under other circumstances, Diana might have laughed. As it was, she just nodded. "I need to find a new heart's desire. I need to get away from here and the reminders of _it _that I find everywhere."

Clark blew out his cheeks. He couldn't argue with that. "Well if this is what you need to heal..."

She managed a small smile. "Thanks, Clark."

He wrapped her in a crushing hug, the paper between them crumpling. "I'll miss you, Diana."

"I know. I'll miss you too," she said, still unable to find tears.

"When will you go?" he asked, finally stepping back with very bright eyes.

"Soon..." she said, voice dropping to a whisper. "I have just one more goodbye to make."

Confusion, and then comprehension crossed his face, and he nodded. "Okay. You will… you will keep in touch though, right?"

"Of course, Clark," she assured him. "Take care of yourself. And for the gods' sakes... tell Lois the truth, and tell her you love her. You don't know what could happen tomorrow."

He nodded numbly, but let her go. It occurred to him, as he watched her walk away, that he'd never seen her looking so broken.

* * *

**A/N: Review please!**


	17. Reunion

**A/N: And so we come to the end of another story. Thank you so much to all my reviewers, and I hope this ending is what you were hoping for. Enjoy!**

**Chapter Seventeen - Reunion**

**When the door to the Watchtower conference room failed to open in the expected three-point-five seconds, Bruce lost his patience. Trusting that his glove would protect his hand, he punched through the wiring panel next to it, and ripped out the cables. The door opened obligingly.**

Ignoring the now throbbing pain in his fist, he stalked inside. Superman followed close behind; unfortunately for the Kryptonian, he was chiding him. "Bruce, I'm not happy about it either, but you can't just go breaking Watchtower equipment –"

"It's my equipment," he growled. "I'll break it if I damn well want to."

Clark sighed. "For God's sake, Bruce, just stop. You made the right decision. Now Diana's doing what she needs to, you have to understand that. Her experience in there was completely different to what happened to the two of us –"

"If you have a point, Kent," Batman snapped, "get to it."

Clark frowned. "That _was _my point."

_Then it was completely redundant, _he thought. "I _know _it was different – that's the whole reason." He turned to Clark. "Why else do you think I've been staying away from the Watchtower, away from _her_, for so long?"

Clark shut his mouth, blinking. Apparently he'd thought it was just Batman being Batman. Bruce rolled his eyes behind his mask.

"I suppose it was just as well, I guess," Clark said abruptly. "None of us could get through to her. Maybe your presence would have caused her unnecessary pain."

Bruce stopped, realising something about the way Superman was talking about her. _Oh no. _"Why... Why are you referring to her in the _past _tense, Kent?" he asked, voice dangerously soft.

Clark shot him a quizzical look. "Well she... She didn't say goodbye?"

Bruce felt his chest tighten. "Goodbye?" he croaked.

Superman suddenly looked terrified. "She's gone, Bruce. She resigned this morning."

* * *

Twenty minutes after she'd transported from the Watchtower, Diana pushed open the wrought iron gates of a graveyard on the outskirts of Gotham. She had no idea where she was heading – just that her feet were carrying her forward, and she'd know when she reached the right place. If she'd been in the mood for contemplation, that would have made her pause. However, as it stood now, all she wanted was to see them again, even if...

Even if only their tomb.

* * *

"From the League?" Batman asked stupidly.

"Yes... She said she –" Clark cut off, looking distinctly nervous.

"She said _what_?" Bruce asked urgently.

"She said she had one more goodbye to make, and I assumed that was to you – I mean I can't believe she wouldn't – She loves you," he finished lamely.

Bruce, standing braced against the table, shoved away violently. "No, she doesn't love me. She loves… She loves the man I _could _be. And I..." He'd wasted too much time. He hadn't told her he could be who she needed, he'd let her believe that she was completely alone. "Then what?" he asked, voice raw.

"What?"

"After she'd said goodbye... then where was she going? Themyscira?"

"No," Clark said, now quietly understanding. "She said she was going to – to look for a new..."

Apparently he couldn't finish, though whether out of sympathy for him, Bruce didn't know, or care. He knew how the sentence was going to end. "A new heart's desire," he breathed, lowering his head.

There was a long, bleak silence. In the choking despair that blanketed his brain, though, a dagger of thought got through. A last goodbye... and she hadn't said to who... Maybe... just _maybe…_

Without another word to Superman, Bruce left the conference room and ran. _Please, please, please..._

* * *

"I... I don't know why I came." Stopping, she sighed. "No, that's not quite true. I came to say goodbye, I... Goddess, that sounds so stupid. How could I say goodbye when you're already gone? When we really never even met?"

Was this how Batman felt as a child? It must have been. She pictured him standing at these gravesides, not understanding why this had happened. The _how _he knew all-too-well. This wasn't _fair_.

"_Life isn't fair, honey. All we can do is endure it." _

Diana looked toward Martha's grave. "That is what you'd say, isn't it?" Tears filled her eyes. "But... what if you wouldn't have said that? What if..."

Her knees finally gave way. She sobbed against the headstone, wrapping her arms around it and crying until she couldn't breathe. She'd never met these people, never known them. What if the Mercy had gotten it wrong? What if Martha's perfume hadn't been lavender water? What if Thomas had never played chess? She'd lost them without ever knowing them.

She knew that eventually Batman would turn up, and more than likely he'd be extremely angry, but at the moment, Diana didn't care. She needed this. It was the first time she'd felt _anything _in weeks. If nothing else, grief was an emotion that she was grateful to be experiencing.

When Batman did arrive, not long after, he wasn't angry. He only knelt at her side, pulling her into his arms. With her head against his Kevlar-coated chest, Diana found she did have tears left after all. He ran gloved hands down her hair and pulled her closer.

At the oh-so-familiar gesture, Diana pulled away from him. She'd allowed herself a moment of weakness that she could not afford. He wasn't the man she needed him to be.

Still, he was the only one who could answer her questions.

She turned away, leaving him still on his knees as they both looked at his parents' graves. "What were they like?" she whispered. "In _reality_."

The first, traditional impulse was to say nothing, fade into the night. The second was to respond harshly that it was absolutely nothing to do with her.

Except that wasn't fair. She'd lost them just as suddenly – if not as violently – as he had, and it had been so long since he'd spoken of them... Well, he hadn't. Not since the day they'd disappeared beneath the ground. They'd been a forbidden subject to his friends, to his family – even Alfred never spoke of them, though sometimes he'd get a distant look on his face, and Bruce knew he was thinking of them.

"I... They were amazing," he finally croaked out.

That wasn't enough, not nearly, but there wasn't anything else. Christ, was that what had happened? All the tiny details gone, blurred into a warm, soft-focused vision of Hallmark perfection. How did he separate fact from wonderful fiction?

He looked down. "I can't remember."

She let out a bitter chuckle. "Then what chance do I stand?"

"Diana –"

"Your mother... when she smiled, did her mouth always curl up at the corner before it broadened?"

"Yes..."

"And her perfume? In there it was –"

"Lavender water." The words were out of his mouth before he even thought about it. God... he remembered. Lost in the revelation, he didn't notice Diana's small gasp.

"It used to leave a trail of scent when she left the room. I could still smell it on my clothes days after-"

Diana's eyes flickered over to Thomas's grave as her lungs fought valiantly – and futilely – to extract oxygen from the air. "And your father?" she breathed. "Did he play –"

"He played chess," Bruce said, answering her question before she'd asked it. "And I –"

"Never beat him at it," Diana completed.

Turning back to him, she fell to her knees, hands gripping his upper arms tightly. "Oh Great Hera, Batman, Hera, how is that… How is that _possible_?"

He shook his head, not really listening. He _remembered._ Mom's birthday, and Dad wanted to get her a new horse, so he and Bruce had gone to a stables, picked out a gelding that they knew she'd love. Or deciding that Dad would be really impressed if Bruce washed his car for him – only to find the entire garage covered with suds, except the Ferrari, which had somehow been smothered in oil. He got scolded by Mom and Alfred that day. Then Dad had told him that the road to hell was paved with good intentions, then taken him out in the now-clean Ferrari to get milkshakes.

Still, how would Diana know things like that? "Maybe..."

Diana shut her eyes while she trembled. _Maybe somehow... they were really with me_, she thought. Rather than a warm glow, that brought only a fresh wave of despair. She'd lost them without even realising it. The whole world had been fake – could it be that, somehow, they were real?

Realising the grasp she still had on his arms, she pushed away, no longer crying, still trembling. She still wasn't looking at him. Knowing that if it carried on this way it would kill them both, Bruce pushed his cowl back. "Diana, look at me."

She tried, she really did, but couldn't bring herself to look into her husband's face. "Please, Princess."

Her trembling increased, but she did look up, and there he was. Bruce, but not _her_ Bruce. "I... I'm sorry, Batman, I –"

"Bruce," he interrupted softly.

A tremor ran through her. "Please don't... ask me to call you that," she whispered.

"It's my name," he replied.

"But –"

"Diana… I may not be the same man." He took her hand, pressed it to his chest. "But he's in here, and he still loves you."

She shook her head miserably.

He lifted her chin. "Diana. _I love you_."

She was silent for a long time. The words began to sink in. She stared at him, hardly daring to hope. "Do you mean that?" Diana whispered.

He nodded, feeling his confession being tugged out of him. "These last few months... Diana, they've been killing me. I thought I'd lost you. I can't lose you again."

With that, he took her face between his hands and kissed her. She didn't resist, but didn't kiss back for a moment either. Unexpectedly, a sob began to develop in his chest. It was too late now, and he'd come too far to go back. If she didn't return it, it would be the end of him.

"Princess, please."

That, right there, was it. She heard everything she needed to in those two words. The smile on her face was like the sunrise. "Bruce."

He hadn't been aware of his heart stopping, but now it was beating again, hard enough to break through his ribcage. This time, she kissed him. It felt like coming home when his arms wrapped around her. She knew this chest, these arms, this heart beating beneath its Kevlar shell. She kissed him until she couldn't breathe, but this time, inhalation was a relief. She had him. She had him _back_.

"I love you."

How he'd gone his entire life without hearing that sentence from her mouth, he didn't know. He sure as hell wasn't going to live the rest of it that way. He kissed her again, only to find that her face was still wet with tears. He drew away. "What's wrong?"

She shook her head. "Nothing, I..."

"Diana. Be honest with me."

She turned her head against his chest to look at the graves beside them. "I... How did you recover?" she whispered.

His own reply was as broken as her question. "I didn't. I became... this." He looked down at her, tears threatening now. But with her, he didn't have to push them away anymore. "It crippled me, Diana. Maybe this will heal me." _Maybe you can. _

She bit her bottom lip, but nodded firmly. "I will, Bruce. I promise you I will. We'll heal each other."

"It won't be simple, or easy –"

She put her fingers to his lips, shaking her head. "Don't, Bruce, please don't. Don't try to dissuade me. We've been through too much, and it'll break us both if we turn back now."

He couldn't argue with that, but Diana wasn't done. "Before all of this, I... I loved you, and that was enough. You needed me. I loved you, and you needed me whether you admitted it or not, and that was enough then. I could have waited for you," she said, taking his face between her hands, feeling stubble brush against her palms. Her eyes scanned her desperately. "It's not like that now, Bruce," she whispered, pressing her mouth to his. "It's not like that now," she repeated against his lips.

He took her hands. "Then how is it?"

Every teaching her mother and sisters had had ever instilled in her in her went totally against what she was about to say. When she had come into Man's World, she had been warrior and Amazon above all. Not so now. Now she was a woman before everything else, and as a woman – "I need you," she replied. "This isn't about desire anymore. I need you to exist, as much as I need my next breath."

She kissed him again. The moisture on his cheek... she wasn't sure if it had come from him or her, but it didn't matter. She leaned back at smiled through both their tears. "Let me love you."

His eyes scanned her tired, emotionally-ravaged face. And he managed a smile, and another soft kiss to her lips. "Only if you let me love you."

She let out a noise that was a mix of sob and laugh, despair and joy. "Everything will be alright, Bruce. I promise."

He smiled, stroked her cheek. "I know."

A soft breeze floated through the cemetery, wrapping them both in a warm embrace. They would never speak of it, even to each other, but they both heard the gentle, familiar voice in the wind.

_You've done well, honey. Be happy. _

* * *

**A/N: Again, thank you. I hope you enjoyed the story. And one last time, review please!**


	18. Epilogue

**A/N: Thank you to all my reviews, but most of all to Angel Queen, without whom most of my things would be rubbish in the extreme :) This is short, but I hope you liked it. **

**Epilogue**

A smile is given. "Thank you both."

A bow is returned. "As we said - if it helps them...anything."

A question is asked. "Does she know?"

A nod is bestowed. "I think so. Certainly she now suspects that she knew the real you."

A brow is furrowed. "And now what?"

A pair of shoulders are shrugged elegantly. "Now she will mourn you."

A tongue is clicked in sympathy. "The poor child. Perhaps we only increased her pain."

A divine head is shaken. "I do not believe so. They are connected now in a way that cannot be broken. Even-"

A smirk curls a dead mouth. "Even should he try?"

A hand is squeezed. "He won't. He's always needed her - now she's the same."

A smile finally breaks. "So they'll be happy now. They'll be..."

Finally Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, bows to the spirits Thomas and Martha Wayne. "Now they will be whole."

---

**A/N: And that's it I'm afraid! Hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it. **


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